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•JNGRAVEJJ JBY T. B. WULCH. 




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/ 
1/ 



THE LIFE 



OF 



WILLIAM PINENEY, 



BY HIS NEPHEW 



THE REV. WILLIAM PINKNEY, D.D. 



" Tanta vis animi, tantns Impetus, tantus dolor, oculis, vultn, gestu, digito denlquo islo 
tno, signiflcarl solet: tantum est flnmen gravissimorum optimorumque verborum, tam 
intigrse sententise, tam verae, tam nova;, tam sine pigmentis fucoquo puerili, ut mihi non solum 
tn incendere jndicem, sed ipse ardere, videaris. — Cicero de Oratoee. 

" His opinions had almost acquired the authority of judicial decisions." 

EOB. GOODLOE HaEPEB. 



-3?YRlGh7'^-.\ 



NEW-YOKK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 




200 BROADWAY. 
MDCCCLIII. 



^0.3' 



^^^cpyfyiJ^i^ ^ ^ C£4A>^ Oy^icc St.^i 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, by 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

in the Clerk's Office of tlie District Court of tlie United States for the Soiithern 

District of Ne-w-York. 






l^ 



TO 

THE BAR OF MARYLAND, 

EVER RENOWNED FOR THE ELOQUENCE AND LEARNING- OF ITS 
ADVOCATES, 

THIS WORK 

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 

BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



17 



PREFACE. 

Maryland has been far more favored by Divine Providence 
in her list of illustrious sons, and exciting historic incidents, 
than by the pen of skilful and 'enlightened historians or 
faithful and competent biographers. This is just matter 
of surprise, and good ground of impeachment. Next to 
the production of great men, who inscribe their names upon 
the monuments of their country's glory, is the energetic 
endeavor to hand down to after ages a true and faithful 
record of their deeds ; and, what is of greater importance 
stiU (for deeds lose something of their power to fascinate 
and charm by the changing scenes of the present moment), 
of their intellectual qualities and moral virtues, which are 
the true picture of the man, and make up his claim to an 
immortality on the earth. 

It is no less the duty than the interest of the State to 
be jealous of the glory of the past. It is her treasury of 
wealth, from which she may draw largely not only for j)re- 
sent exigencies but for future advancement. The most 
illustrious of the historians of Rome thus wrote : — " Nam 
sEepe audivi, 0. Maxumum, P. Scipionem, praeterea civitatis 
nostrfe praeclaros viros solitos ita dicere, cum majorum 
imagines intuerentur, vehementissume sibi animum ad vir- 
tutem accendi. Scilicet, non ceram iUam, neque figuram, 



b PEEFACE. 

tantam vim in sese habere ; seel memoria rerum gestarum 
earn flammam egregiis viris in pectore crescere neque prius 
sedari, quam virtus eorum famam atque gloriam adeequa- 
verit." 

The very sight of the statues of our ancestors is inspirit- 
ing, for though in themselves but cold marble, they have a 
voice that speaks at once to the heart and hopes of the 
young who are grouped around them. But if mere statues 
be thus eloquent and instructive, what must be said of the 
life-hke and life-revealing biography ? If the chisel of the 
sculptor, or the pencil of the artist, can accomplish so won- 
derful a work as the retaining here on the earth the image 
of departed worth, what may not the pen of the historian 
do? 

In history we have accomplished much, though not so 
much as the rich variety of our material demands ; but in 
biography we have scarce made more than our first essay. 
Bozman, of old and fragrant memory, has earned just praise 
for the facts he has rescued from oblivion ; which, while 
they diminish naught from the stirring glories of Plymouth 
Kock, show conclusively that a higher Eock, of firmer basis 
and more broad protecting shade, was laid in this western 
world by our forefathers in the colonizing of Maryland — 
where liberty in higher form pervaded our charter, and a 
more enlightened toleration was secured to the pioneers of 
freedom. The gifted historian of Frederick City has added 
another flower to our garden of history that will never fade. 
McMahon, our most illustrious living orator, who wears the 
robe of our old renown in great names so gracefully, has 
given to the country and the world a good pledge of what 



PREFACE. 7 

her sons can accomplish in this most difficult field of literary 
pursuit. It is deeply to be regretted that his vigorous pen 
has ceased to record the glowing deeds of the past, and 
sketch with those master-strokes the moral beauty and 
intellectual grandeur of her sons, whose names and deeds 
are inseparably blended with her history. It is to our 
shame and disgrace, that the historian is yet alive, patient 
in study, and skilled in all that can give force and beauty 
to narrative ; and yet that narrative be not completed. It 
is a bm-ning reproach that one of the original thirteen stars 
(whose very first scintillations of liberty were the solace and 
consolation of the oppressed, and whose peculiar brilliancy 
was always meekly blended with that of the blazing galaxy) 
is not yet fixed in the firmament of history. We sincerely 
hope that the day is not far distant, when the pen of 
McMahon shall once more recall to mind the fact that Rome 
had her Livy ; and enable us, with the modesty of truth, 
to say that Maryland may exultingly point to hers. 

But in biography what have w^e done ? With the ex- 
ception of Wii-t's Life, by Kennedy, the hand of strangers 
has had to write the only lives of our lamented dead ; and 
we all know that a stranger cannot so well gather up the 
lights and shades of character as those who, familiarized 
with the hearth-stones whence are reflected the daily habits 
of the daily life, tread the very soil they trod and illumi- 
nated with their glory. 

We are not ignorant of the difficulties that compass the 
path of those who would fain write biography ; nor are we 
insensible to the rashness of the undertaking. We have 
not the vanity to suppose that we can execute it with such 
skill as to disarm criticism and win her approval. 



8 PEEFACE. 

Ours is a work of peculiar hazard. We follow in the 
steps of one who adorned the republic of letters, and illus- 
trated the virtues that belong to the enhghtened and ac- 
complished American citizen while he lived ; and, in death, 
received the most touching tributes of the admiration of a 
sorrowing country — and that too at a time when many of 
the most interesting incidents are lost, and some of the 
most copious and important written documents that sur- 
vived him were mingled in the wreck. We have studiously 
collected together all that has been preserved ; and where 
we have drawn from oral tradition, we have been careful to 
test the accuracy of each statement by direct and unim- 
peachable testimony. 

Mr. Pinkney's real character is but little known and 
appreciated in the present day. That character we have 
endeavored to draw ; and the facts collated more than sus- 
tain the justice and accuracy of the portrait. It is not pos- 
sible to write such a life as would be most edifying and 
pleasing. There is not enough of the requisite material. 
We had either to adopt the plan selected, or give up the 
idea altogether. The alternative was promptly chosen, for 
we thought that the faintest sketch would be better than 
nothing. 

In the execution of our work we have had occasion now 
and then to review the opinions and statements of others ; 
and, while we have been careful to deal as tenderly as pos- 
sible with their motives, we have unflinchingly exposed what 
we deemed to be injustice to the memory of the subject of 
our memoir. Passages in his life, which were obviously 
misunderstood or seemingly misrepresented, have been cleared 



PREFACE. a 

up, and his title to the admiration and confidence of the 
present and future establislied, based upon what he was, and 
the j)art he enacted proved him to be. Less than this would 
have been gross injustice to his memory — a connivance at the 
wrong perpetrated. We know that critics have labored 
hard to cry down this habit of defending the character ; and 
we are free to admit that there may be vicious extremes to 
which it may be pushed ; but, while we vindicate the pro- 
priety of the one, we have been careful to guard against the 
other. Against but three classes of assailants have we raised 
our voice ; and we have met those, not with the weapons of 
argument or declamation, so much as mth stubborn and 
incontrovertible facts. 

Some may be tempted to charge us with extravagant 
eulogy. We only ask to be judged by our facts. If they 
condemn us, we are prepared to plead guilty to the charge 
and sue for pardon. If they condemn us not, we may weU 
challenge the approval of mankind. 

It has been said, that he who causes a spire of grass to 
grow where none grew before, is a public benefactor. If so, 
what shall be said of him who succeeds in setting forth an 
illustrious character in its true light. Criticism may sneer 
at the style, and denounce the over-estimate of ability, which 
pursues an aim above its reach. But surely the endeavor 
to accomplish so good a purpose under so many discourage- 
ments, and amid such a dearth of materials, may weU con- 
found the critic, and shield us from his poisoned shafts. 

If those "who discommend wiU mend" the work, they 
will find me the first to ofier them the sincerest tribute of 
gratitude ; and may rest assured that none will rejoice more 



10 PREFACE. 

in a failure, which shall secure for WilKam Pinkney a 
biographer worthy of his fame, than myself 

A number of pubHc and private letters never before incor- 
porated in a biography, some of them never before pub- 
lished elsewhere, are now given to the world. 

He wrote some most admirable articles, under the sig- 
nature of " Decius," in favor of Madison's re-election, and 
against the pretensions of De Witt Clinton, which I have 
endeavored in vain to secure for pubhcation in this work. 
They were known to be his by his more intimate friends. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 



William Pinkney was born at Annaiiolis in the State of 
Maryland on the I7th of March, 1764. The place of his 
birth was every way worthy of her illustrious son. Situated 
on the banks of the Severn, girded in by a belt of waters, al- 
most an island, in full view of the noble old Chesapeake, 
the paragon of bays ; and surrounded by a scenery richly 
variegated, of mingled beauty and sublimity, — it is not pos- 
sible to look out upon this ancient city, even amid the 
touching monuments of her decline, Avithout admiration. 
She was, at the period of which I speak, the seat of refine- 
ment, elegance, and taste— the Athens of the New World. 
Genius and wealth lend their combined attractions to grace 
the legend of her glory. She was also the -theatre of stir- 
ring revolutionary scenes. It was within her precincts 
that the offensive and unjust legislation of the mother coun- 
try met with a rebuke, full as significant and emphatic as 
that which has since given to Boston an immortality of 
renown and made her, as it were, the consecrated cradle of 
liberty. Young Pinkney loved and honored this the place 
of his birth. Possessed of a soul which was peculiarly 
attuned to those nobler feelings of our nature which delight 
in the thrilhng reminiscences and ennobling associations of 
the past ; and more than ordinarily susceptible to the power 
of local attachments, he always prided himself upon An- 
napohs, the place of his birth. His heart clung to it with 
peculiar tenacity even amid the beauties of London. Stand- 



12 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

ing on the shores of classic Italy, and drinking in, with 
every sense, the potent spell that lingers by the spot where 
the past so gloriously mingles with the present, he was 
often known to look over the wide waste of waters, and sigh 
that his eye rested not upon the city washed by Chesa- 
peake's broad waves. To wander by the banks of her rivers, 
and survey her exquisite natural scenery, was ever his de- 
light. It was there he fed his strong natural taste for the 
beautiful and sublime, and kindled the flame of his bound- 
less ambition. If those banks had a voice, or those grottoes 
were now vocal, they would, doubtless, echo back the stir- 
ring notes of his youthful eloquence. How he loved An- 
napolis and treasured through all after years the touching 
memory of her beauty, may be ascertained from the follow- 
ing passage of one of his published letters. 

" In itself the most beautiful, to me the most interesting 
spot on earth, I would fain believe that it is destined to en- 
joy the honors of old age, without its decrepitude. 

" There is not a spot of ground in its neighborhood, which 
my memory has not consecrated, and which does not produce 
as fancy traces it a thousand retrosj)ections that go directly 
to the heart." 

Demosthenes was not more proud of Athens nor Cicero 
of Eome. Webster was not more proud of Boston than was 
William Pinkney of Annapolis. And she was pre-eminent- 
ly worthy of his ardent attachment and exulting pride ; for 
in all that can give dignity and honor, the charm of patriot- 
ism and the fascination of genius to the character of man, 
she was at that time most richly endowed. 

Mr. Pinkney's ancestors came over from Normandy to 
England with William the Conqueror. His father sprung 
from one of the most respectable and ancient families of 
Britain ; the same that gave to Carolina some of her most 
briUiant and illustrious names. It has been sometimes af- 
firmed that his origin was obscure ; but nothing could be 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 13 

farther removed fi-om the truth. The elder Pinkney emigra- 
ted to the United States, and located himself at Annapolis, 
where he lived in quiet seclusion and illustrated the virtues 
that adorned his character. He was a hero in spirit, a man 
of indomitable moral courage and the highest moral integri- 
ty, who never sacrificed conscience to expediency, and never 
yielded up its dictates but to clear convictions of duty. He 
adhered with a mistaken but honest firmness to the cause 
of the mother country, and sufiered severely the conse- 
quences of his conscientiousness. Even those who may be 
disposed to censure his adherence to the oath he had taken 
as a subject of the British crown, must admire the sterling 
and heroic spirit he displayed, in sacrificing his ease and com- 
fort and fortune to what he believed to be his duty, and con- 
fronting, unawed and unappalled, the violent outbreaks of 
the popular feeling, that branded his conduct as unpatriotic 
and disgraceful. He died as he lived, without a stain upon 
his honor, the victim of a mistaken sense of duty. The 
mother of young Pinkney was a lady of most vigorous un- 
derstanding and tender sensibilities. Her image was the 
guiding star of his destiny. He always spoke of her as the in- 
strament, under Providence, of all that gave him any title to 
public confidence and esteem. She watched over his infant 
years with the fondest solicitude, and aided by her pious 
counsel and beautiful example in the development of his 
mind and heart. It was his misfortune to lose her fostering 
care when but a boy ; and he retained, through all after-life, 
the freshest recollection of her many virtues and superior in- 
tellect, and never mentioned her name but with deepest vener- 
ation and truest and most heartfelt affection. Poverty was the 
portion of his early childhood. His father's property con- 
fiscated by the government, whose infant struggles at once en- 
listed his warmest sympathies, he was thrown penniless on the 
world. Without money or the patronage money brings with 
it, through exertions all his own, the giant resolve to be 



14 LIFE OF WILLIAM PIRKNET. 

something and do something to reflect some new lustre on 
the city and State of his birth — he pushed on in his enter- 
prising career with a steadiness and industry, that were the 
surest pledge of success. 

Concerning the early education of Mr. Pinkney, there has 
been much misapprehension. During the lifetime of his father, 
and before his troubles began, no expense was spared in secur- 
ing for him the best and most skilful instruction. He was 
sent to King William school, a first class academy, founded 
in 1696. "It stood on the south side of the State House, 
and is said to have been a plain building, containing school- 
rooms and apartments for the teacher and his family," At 
the time he entered its walls, it was under the government 
of a gentleman by the name of Bref-hard, who was a first- 
rate scholar and pre-eminently fitted to have charge of youth. 
Perceiving the extraordinary abilities of his young pupil, Mr. 
Bref-hard took uncommon pains in imparting to him the ru- 
diments of a first-rate education. He left school about the 
age of thirteen — but his teacher, conscious of the uncommon 
promise of his interesting charge, continued to give him pri- 
vate lessons at his own house ; and watched with unbounded 
interest the development of his mind, as long as he remained 
in the country. Tliis gentleman formed for his pupil a warm 
personal friendship, which was never afterwards withdrawn. 
That he received a first-rate English education and was well 
grounded in the classics is indisputable ; but it is more than 
probable, that his reading in the classics at that early period 
was not extensive, as he did not long continue to enjoy those 
invaluable privileges. 

This school has been sometimes confounded with St. 
John's College, and therefore that institution has been not 
unfrequently regarded as his alma mater. The misappre- 
hension no doubt originated in the fact, that the funds 
of King William school were by an act of assembly con- 
signed in 1785 to St. John's College. The coUege was found- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 15 

ed in 1784 and opened and dedicated in 1789 '; so that the 
school may be said truly to have been merged in the college. 

For St. John's Mr. Pinkney felt a strong attachment. 
It was with not less pride than pleasure that he saw her 
become the boast and pride of Maryland ; and witnessed her 
distinguished success in rewarding the State's liberal patron- 
age by returning to her bosom, sons Avho were qualified, by 
profound and elegant scholarship and high toned manly prin- 
ciples, to guide and control her future destinies. This ven- 
erable edifice still stands, and fulfils her important mission. 
The strong hand of power struck her down in her bright ca- 
reer, but Mr. Pinkney left his indignant and decisive protest 
against the mad policy of her foes, by pronouncing the day, 
that witnessed her degradation, the darkest Maryland had 
known. Old St. John's once more enjoys the fostering care 
of the State, and prosecutes with quiet and unobtrusive dig- 
nity her allotted work. 

Academic instruction was all, then, that the subject of this 
memoir enjoyed. And even in academic groves he was per- 
mitted to rove but for a few fleeting years. While a resi- 
dent in London it is well known that he employed his leisure 
moments in the study of the Latin language and the critical 
study of his own. Finding himself far behind the classical 
attainments of the prominent men of England, he devoted 
time and attention, under the superintendence of a private 
tutor, to the renewal of those studies ; and never rested sat- 
isfied until he had made up aU deficiencies. He became an 
admirable Latin scholar, and acquired a knowledge of his 
own tongue, singularly accurate and discriminating, rarely 
if ever equalled, never excelled. Unwilling to appear in the 
learned and polite circles of English scholars ignorant ; and 
unwilUng to afiect a knowledge he did not possess, he at that 
late period put himself to school, and thought it no degrada- 
tion to assume the attitude of a learner, although the rep- 
resentative of one of the proudest nations of the world, and 



16 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

placed in almost constant contact witli the most experienced 
statesmen and profound jurists of another. 

There are many floating traditions, which conspired to 
give to his early years the pledge of his future vast renown. 
But still for the most part, his youth was passed in the 
struggles of pride and a lofty aspiration with the rough and 
appalling realities of life, when poverty settles down, like 
night upon the sea, on the youthful aspirant. 

His first thoughts were directed to medicine. He enter- 
ed . the office of Dr. Dorsey and pursued his studies for a 
short time. 

Discovering that it was an uncongenial pursuit, he very 
soon abandoned it for that, which owned him pre-eminent. 
Judge Chase, of distinguished memor}'-, was liis patron and 
his friend. He studied in his office, and received many fa- 
cilities in the accomplishment of his desires in this new and 
untried field, from that able jurist ; which he lived to repay 
in after years to Chase's descendants. In the bright cata- 
logue of the illustrious men (whose names are still the boast 
and ornament of the Maryland bar) Pinkney felt the exciting 
stimulus for exertion. The field of fame was preoccupied. 
Laurels were strewed all around him in wild profusion, worn 
by other brows and kept in unfading lustre by their energetic 
efforts. In the sj)lendors of Dulany, her setting luminary 
(one of the most remarkable men of his age), and in the 
meridian blaze of her Chase and Martin, who were jnst then 
culminating to their zenith, he felt as the sons of genius 
ever feel, whose steppings are in an illuminated pathway, 
that those, who would follow in their steps, must give their 
days and nights to study and emulate their greatness by em- 
ulating their love of labor. He studied for the mastery. 
His aim was high from the start, and he never withdrew his 
eye from the goal. In the struggles of the debating club, 
with his young associates around him (each one doing his 
utmost to ecHpse his fellows and win the palm of ascenden- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 17 

cy against all competitors), Pinkney easily acquii'ed an envia- 
ble pre-eminence ; and yet lie did not dare even then to enjoy 
it in ease. He was indefatigable as a student. He studied 
the grand principles of the law in the writings of its pro- 
foundest and deepest expounders ; and in those earliest strug- 
gles, where he acquired his training for the more earnest con- 
flicts of the forum, he poured forth all his powers, and often 
extorted praise from the admiring crowd, who were the de- 
lighted spectators of those youthful contests. 

He was admitted to the bar in 1*786. Harford county 
was chosen as the arena of his first professional efforts. She 
received and rewarded the young adventurer. She saw his 
worth and appreciated it. In April, 1788 (but two years 
after his settlement in the county), he was elected a delegate 
to the convention of the State of Maryland, which ratified 
the constitution of the United States. This was the begin- 
ning of his illustrious public career. Unhappily there is no 
record preserved of the debates of that body, and consequent- 
ly we are not able to determine what part young Pinkney 
took in its deliberations, or in what way he signalized him- 
self But the bare privilege of sitting in such a body, and 
mingling in the councils of the fathers of the Eepublic, and 
recording an n.ffirmn.tive vot e in the adoption of such an in- 
strument as the constitution of the United States — the being 
considered by so intelligent a constituency (among whom he 
had been but two years a resident) worthy of so high and 
responsible a post, was honor enough and distinction enough 
for so young a man. There seems to be, to my mind at least, 
a beautiful and appropriate coincidence in the beginning and 
the close of Pinkney's career. It opened amid the splendors 
of the new formed constitution (that wise substitute for the 
impotent and inadequate confederation) ; and it closed in the 
very act of giving a last and finishing exhibition of the 
truest, safest, profoundest principles of its interpretation. 

In October, 1788, he was elected a member of the House 
2 



18 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

of Delegates. In those days Maryland had cause to be proud 
of that body. They were men chosen for their intelligence;, 
purity, patriotism, learning and eloquonce. He there met 
with competition to test the strength of the strongest, and 
fire the enthusiasm of the most aspiring. His style of speak- 
ing is represented by those who were competent to judge, 
to have been singularly rich and attractive. With a voice 
of uncommon melody and power, an elocution beautifully 
accurate, and action graceful and impressive, he held the 
listening crowds upon his tongue in rapt astonishment and 
wonder. The tradition is still alive in Maryland, which 
echoes the wide-spread rumor of his fame ; and those are still 
living, known to this writer, who heard from competent lips 
the confident prediction of his future pre-eminence. 

It was there he raised his voice, in bold and manly tone, 
against the law that would deny to the holder of slaves 
the right of manumission. Twice on the floor of the House, 
in speeches of considerable power and fervid eloquence, he 
deprecated the insertion of such an odious and despicable 
principle in the State's legislation. The sentiments deliver- 
ed on that occasion were such as did infinite credit to his 
heart. They indicated a spirit that shunned not the respon- 
sibility of speaking out its honest opinions and convictions 
of public policy, without reserve or equivocation. But those 
opinions and con\dctions were not in disloyalty to the Union 
or in contravention of the constitution. In advocating the 
right of the power to manumit, and holding up to universal 
scorn and rebrobation the law that would have laid low that 
right, Mr. Pinkney was speaking to Marylanders on a sub- 
ject exclusively their own. He was addressing himself to the 
representatives of a Southern State in relation to an institu- 
tion purely local, and enforcing the wisdom and propriety of 
clemency and moderation in the legislation about to be adopt- 
ed, I dwell upon this, because the views of Mr, Pinkney 
have been singularly misconceived and misrepresented on the 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 19 

floor of the American Senate. His name has been identified 
with modern abolitionism. The speeches of his youth have 
been arrayed against the grand effort in the Missouri compro- 
mise in the maturity of his years ; with what show of justice 
will be seen, when we compare the positions in which he stood 
in the one case and the other. In the Legislature of Maryland, 
he raised his voice against what appeared to him to be cruel 
and oppressive legislation, touching an institution all her 
oyra, within the express terms and spiiit of the constitution. 
He implored Mary landers to do, what it was perfectly com- 
petent for them to do wdth their own, in the spirit of an en- 
lightened and elevated humanity. There was not one word 
uttered against the clear constitutional rights of a sovereign 
State of this Union — not one principle advanced that was in 
violation of that great constitutional compromise. He was 
pleading on Maryland soil with Marylanders, for the exercise 
of a clemency and justice in her legislation, that was per- 
fectly in consonance with her constitutional rights and priv- 
ileges. He who can discover any sort of affinity between 
this earnest remonstrance, addressed to the constitutional 
authorities of a sovereign State, and the revolutionary and 
inflammatory appeals of abolitionism, wliich assail constitu- 
tional prerogatives and war upon State sovereignty, possess- 
es a power of tracing resemblances between things that are 
intrinsically unlike ; and confounds all the existing and well 
established distinctions that divide contrarieties from each 
other. 

In the Missouri compromise, on the floor of the Ameri- 
can Senate, Mr. Pinkney maintained the right of the State 
under the constitution to regulate and control this institution 
for itself, and denied the power of Congress to place any re- 
striction upon a State applying for admission. There is no 
antagonism between the views of Mr. Pinlmey during any 
period of his pubHc career upon this delicate and important 
subject. He was too zealous and consistent a supporter of 



20 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 

the constitution to have ever sanctioned aggression, either of 
the States upon the general government or the general gov- 
ernment upon the States. Those who have invoked his 
name to the support of principles, that are destructive of the 
peace, harmony, and perpetuity of the Union, have done 
great injustice to his memory ; and for lack of knowledge or 
want of reflection have failed to distinguish between things 
essentially diverse. The perpetration of the injustice is not 
so wonderful as the failure to rectify it when pointed out. 

At this early period of his professional and legislative 
career, he was noted for the careless simplicity of his dress 
and manners ; the very opposite of the punctihous and stu- 
dious elegance and attention to dress, which he acquired in 
foreign courts, to avoid singularity, and which he retained to 
the close of life. 

In 1789 Mr. Pinkney was united to Miss Ann Maria, 
daughter of John Eodgers, Esq., of Havre de Grace, and sis- 
ter of Commodore John Rodgers ; a man of hold, chivalrous 
spirit, who never tarnished the flag under which he sailed, 
and lost no opportunity of seeking to plant it in triumph, 
whenever he navigated the seas. 

Ten cliildren were the fruit of this marriage, all of whom, 
with the beautiful and accompHshed lady who united her 
happiness and destiny to his, survived him. Mrs. Pinkney 
lived to an honorable old age ; and her declining years, 
though saddened by severe bodily infii-mity, were soothed by 
those who best knew her worth, until death gently closed 
the scene. She was in early life the picture of health and 
feminine beauty. Her easy manner, aflability of disposition, 
and strong vigorous intellect, eminently qualified her to 
adorn the social position she was called to fill, and fitted 
her to cheer the anxious careworn pilgrimage of her illus- 
trious consort. She paid his memory the most precious trib- 
ute of affection and respect, and sought and found, in the 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 21 

bosom of her family and a few select and tried friends, the 
solace of her \\ddowhood. 

In 1790 he was elected a member of Congress by the 
citizens of his adopted county. His election was contested, 
but, after a most powerful and conclusive argument in his 
own behalf, ratified and confirmed. He however subsequently 
declined the honor for reasons of a prudential and private 
nature. 

In 1792 he was elected a member of the Executive Council 
of Maryland, of which he was for a time the president. This 
position of great responsibility, under the old Constitution, 
he fiUQed with increasing reputation and ability. 

In 1796 he was appointed commissioner to England un- 
der the seventh article of Jay's treaty in connection with Mr. 
Gore. This was a truly honorable appointment, the more 
honorable because conferred without sohcitation by the dis- 
crimination of a Washington, who in his own State was 
suiTounded by the very stars of the Eepublic, and in the 
bestowment of office looked to the qualifications, and refused 
to be swayed in his choice by narrow, contracted or local pre- 
judices ; which alas ! in our day too much influence executive 
patronage. Official position adds nothing to the intrinsic 
intellectual power and moral greatness of a man. It only 
affords a sj)here for the display of the talent, and exhibition 
of the high qualities for rule that are possessed. It does 
not enrich or endow. It only developes. But stiU in those 
early days it was a sure and unerring indication of talent ; 
for office was then conferred, not sought, the reward of dis- 
tinction, not the price of servile jiartisanship. The manner 
in wlfich he discharged the duties of his high functions during 
this embassage is matter of history; and his recorded opinions 
are splendid specimens of profound and eloquent argumen- 
tation, worthy of the country he represented and the distin- 
guished legal ability that characterized the discussion he 
was called upon in part to adjudicate. He also rendered 



22 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

most valuable service to the State of Maryland in recovering 
800,000 dollars, whicli was acknowledged in a public vote of 
thanks by the Legislature. 

Mr, Pinkney's private correspondence during the period 
of his absence on this mission is very beautiful and interest- 
ing. Although much of it has been unhappily lost, it is in 
my power to add a few letters, that have never before graced 
the pages of any preceding biography. Dr. Johnson in his 
life of Pope admonishes us that "epistolary intercourse affords 
the strongest temptation to fallacy and sophistication," and 
scouts the idea that "the true character of men may be 
found in their letters." There is doubtless much force and 
truth in the views of the venerable Doctor ; but still we 
incline to the opinion of another of England's noble writers 
" that the comparison of letters, from whatever hand, will 
assist materially in estimating the disposition as well as the 
talents of a writer." A criterion it is ; — but one which must 
be narrowly watched, entertained with caution, and carefully 
weighed. In interweaving portions of Mr. Pinkney's letters 
into this memoir, I do not so much design to illustrate 
character as to give currency to his views and reflections on 
men and things. A rich variety was'^Dut into the hands of 
Mr. Wheaton, consisting of letters from England, Naples, 
Kussia, and Italy, written to individuals in different parts 
of the country and never designed for the perusal of any but 
the warm, tried friends of his heart. Of those that were 
not pubhshed (among which were some of the most beautiful) 
none, that I know of, were returned to his friends. A few 
have been received from unexjDected quarters ; these wUl be 
read with satisfaction, and leave an increased regret that 
the lost cannot be now recovered. There is one noble quality 
in those letters, viz., their freedom from haughty egotism and 
bitter acrimony. There is no efibrt at what may be called 
fine writing ; no gush of heart-revealing in them. They 
are the natural, unaffected, artless interchange of thought. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 23 

To entertain, please and instruct, was his end and aim — to 
describe what he saw and felt, was his simple, single-minded 
desire. We read without effort, and rise from the perusal, 
charmed with their natural eloquence, simplicity and beauty. 
We Hsten to his first impressions of England and her great 
and distinguished sons, and find them delivered with freedom, 
but in a spirit of friendly criticism. He held the mind of 
Pitt in august admiration. He admired Wilbeiforce ; revered 
his character, and secured his warmest friendship and most 
unbounded admiration. He duly ai^preciated the power 
and skill of the Bench and Bar of that great country; and 
showed his high respect for parliamentary eloquence by a 
patient and unflagging attendance upon its debates. 



MR. PINKNEY TO HIS BROTHER JONATHAN. 

"London:, 2G</t Aurjust, 179G. 

" Dear J. : — We are now London housekeepers. I found 
it would not answer to take lodgings unless we meant to do 
penance instead of being comfortable. Our present residence 
is merely temporaiy. I have taken a short lease of a new 
house in Upper Guilford-street, No. 5, to which we shall re- 
move in about six weeks. The situation is any, genteel, 
and convenient enough to the commissionei''s office. We are 
compelled to live handsomely, to avoid singularity; but our 
view is still to be as economical as the requisite style of 
living will admit. We do not, and shall not want for the 
most respectable and agreeable society. The American 
families here are on the most friendly and intimate footing 
with us, and we have as many English acquaintances as we 
desire. In short, we may pass our time here (for a few 
years to come) with considerable satisfaction — not so happily, 
indeed, as at Annapolis, but still with much comfort and 
many gratifications. My health is apparently bettered, and 
Mrs. P. is evidently mendipg, — but we have not yet had 



24 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

sufficient experience of the climate to be able to conjecture 
its future effects on us. The child continues well. 

" Our namesake (the late American Minister) is an amia- 
ble man. We have been much with him, and have received 
from him every possible attention. He unites with an ex- 
cellent understanding the most pleasing manners, and is at 
once the man of sense and the polished gentleman. Every 
body speaks well of him, and deservedly. There is no doubt 
of our relationship. His family came from the North — I 
think from Durham, where he tells me he still has relations. 
The loss of his wife appears to have affected him deeply, and 
has doubtless occasioned his anxiety to return to America. 
He leaves us soon, and I am sorry that he does so. 

" Yesterday we appointed the fifth commissioner hy lot. 
He is an American (Colonel John Trumbull), and was secre- 
tary to Mr. Jay, when envoy at this court. I made the 
draft. We all qualified this morning before the Lord Mayor, 
and shall commence business very soon. Every thing in re- 
lation to the commission wears at ^:)?'esew^ a favorable aspect, 
and I have now expectations of being able to return to my 
friends within a period much shorter than I had ventured to 
hoj^e for. 

" 2d Sept. 1796, P. S.— Your letter of the 26th June has 
just reached me. Be assured that nothing can diminish my 
attachment to Annapolis. I have nothing to complain of 
from the inhabitants ; on the contrary, they have done me 
honor beyond my merit. I feel the worth of their atten- 
tions, and shall never lose the grateful recollection of them. 
They have treated me with flattering and friendly distinc- 
tions, and I will never give them cause to regret it. In a 
word, the hope of once more becoming an inhabitant of my 
native city forms one of my greatest pleasures. If I cannot 
be happy there, I cannot be happy any where. If I were to 
settle in any other place, interest, not inclination, must give 
rise to it. I know not where the wish of procuring a com- 



LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNEY. 25 

petence may hereafter fix me ; but if that competence can 
be obtained at Annapolis, there will I labor for it. 

"I intended to have written to Mr. James Williams, but 
have been so much interrupted and engaged as not to be able 
to do so. Indeed I have no subject for a letter but what is 
exhausted in this. His friendly offices on the eve of my 
departure, proved the goodness of liis heart, and made a deep 
impression on mine. Let me be remembered to him in the 
warmest terms. I will write to all my friends in due time, 
and in the interim tell them to wiite to me — a letter is now 
of real value to me. 

" Sept. 18th, P. S. — I missed the opportunity of sending 
my letter, and do not now know when I shall have another. 

" The shooting season began here the 15th insfc., but I 
have not yet had a gun in hand. I envy Dr. Sheafi" the 
sport he will have in the neighborhood of Annapolis. There 
can be none in this country to equal it. 

" Adieu : if I keep my letter by me much longer, it wiU 
become a volume of postscripts. 

" October 14th. — I have just got yours of the 14th Aug. 
It is kind in you to write thus often. Persevere in a prac- 
tice so well begun, and you wiU oblige me highly. The 
commissioners commenced business the 10th inst. I was 
presented to the King on Wednesday last at St. James's. 
It was necessary, and I am glad it was, for while I am here 
I wish to see as much as possible. I was in the House of 
Lords at the opening of Parliament, and heard his majesty 
deliver his speech ; but I was not able to hear the debate 
upon it in the House of Commons, as I wished to do. I have 
attended the theatre pretty often, and have seen all their 
great performers. Be assured that we are accustomed in 
America to rate their excellence too high. There is hardly 
an exhibition in London which report does not exaggerate to 
us. I was led to expect more than I have been able to find. 
There are subjects, however, upon which I have not been 



26 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

disappointed ; the beauty and flourishing appearance of the 
country — the excellence of the roads — the extent and perfec- 
tion of their various manufactures — the enormous stock of 
individual wealth which town and country exhibits, &c., &c., 
cannot be too strongly anticipated." 



MK. PINKNEY TO THE HON. VANZ MUKEY. 

London, February ^th, 179*7. 

" My Dear Sir : — I thank you for requesting to hear 
from me, but did not intend to wait for such a request. I 
wished to feel a little at home before I troubled you with a 
letter — and a stranger in London continues a stranger for 
some time. I find it difficult, even now, to accommodate 
myself to a world in all respects new to me. My habits 
were at variance with a London fife, and habits contracted at 
an early period, and long cherished, are stubborn things, I 
have, however, made a virtue of necessity, and struggled with 
considerable industry to like what I must submit to whether 
I like it or not. Still I cannot look back upon my own 
country without strong regrets. Absence has consecrated 
and swelled into importance the veriest trifles I have left be- 
hind me. You have doubtless experienced this enthusiastic 
retrospect, and know with what soft and mellow colorings 
imagination paints the past in a situation like mine, and 
how the visionary picture indisposes one to the scenes of the 
moment. Upon the whole, however (when I can keep down 
this picture drawing propensity), I manage better than I ex- 
pected. I have found here those whom it would be want of 
hberahty not to esteem. I have found much to amuse and 
more to instruct me. 

" Our circle of acquaintance is a pleasant one, and as 
extensive as we wish it ; and if I did not find some friends j 
too, in such a place as London, I should be afraid that I did 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 2T 

not deserve any. lu short, my time passes agreeably, though 
not so Imppihj as in Maryland : my fancy is more amused 
and my understanding more widely occupied, but the heart 
is not so much interested. 

« It is the misfortune of almost aU traveUers, that they 
set out with expectations so extravagant that their gratifica- 
tion is absolutely impossible. This was m great measure 
my case, and the consequence has been frequent disappomt- 
ment I presume it is to be attributed to my too sangume 
anticipation, that I have seen Mrs. Siddons in her most 
favorite character without emotion or approbation— that i 
have heard Mr. Fox on the most interesting and weighty 
subjects, without discovering that he is an orator— that I 
have heard Mr. Grey on the same occasions, without thinking 
him above mediocrity— in short, that I have seen and heard 
much that I was told I should admire, without admmng it 
at all Mr. Pitt indeed has not disappointed me. He is 
truly a wonderfid man. I never heard so clear and masterly 
a reasoner, or a more effectual declaimer. They have all 
one fault, however. They do not understand the power 
which may be given to the human voice by tones and modu- 
lations. In consequence of our pubHc character. Gore and 
myself are aUowed to sit under the gallery of the House of 
Commons— a pri^dlege of which you will suppose I do not 
omit to avail myself— I could sit there for ever to hsten to 
Mr Pitt. In argument he is beyond example correct and 
pei^picuous— and m declamation energetic and commanding. 
His style might serve as a model of classical elegance, and 
has no defect, unless it be that it is sometimes overloaded 
with parentheses. You have seen and heard him, and there- 
fore need not be told that his manner is against him— that 
his voice is fidl and impressive and his articulation unusually 
distinct. I thought at first that his pronunciation was too 
precise and analytic. It is, in fact, a sort of speUmg pro- 
nunciation, that gives unnecessary body and importance to 



28 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

every syllable ; but I am now famiKarized to this scholastic 
particularity, and hardly feel its impropriety. I observe that 
he, as well as Mr. Fox, closes his periods with a cadence 
unknown in America. I think it unmusical and harsh. It 
is, however, so completely fashionable, that you meet with it 
even in Westminster Hall. Of Mr. Fox, I think that he 
has a vigorous mind — but that he is a speaker in spite of 
nature and his stars. He is, notwithstanding, generally pow- 
erful in debate. I have heard Mr. Erskine once — in the 
House of Commons. I thought nothing of him, but I am 
assured by good judges that at the Bar he is formidable, and 
indeed eloquent, although he makes no figure in parliament. 
I do not understand this — ^but I know one half of the fact to 
be true in Mr. Erskine's case. 

" Mr. Secretary Dundas is mediocre. I incline to think 
that in America the art of speaking is more advanced than 
any other country. We have, it is true, swarms of j)'>^<^ters, 
but we have also more (I mean a greater number of) able 
speakers than are to be found here or elsewhere. The Bar, 
in this country, are sound lawyers, but nothing more. In 
America they are something more. Perhaps in all this I 
make my estimate a little too petulantly, and with too much 
pride of country about me ; but I am writing to you who 
have the same prejudices, and can make allowance for me, 

" You will have heard, before my letter reaches you, of 
the wonderful victory obtained by Bonaparte over the fifth 
army of the Emperor in Italy — 23,000 prisoners and 6,000 
slain ! It is almost beyond belief — and Ave have yet nothing 
upon which to ground belief but the French accounts. They 
state, however, the official dispatches of Bonaparte to the 
Directory — and there seems to be no reason to doubt them. 
If they be true, the fate of Italy is decided. Wurmser, 
however, still holds out in Mantua — but it is uncertain 
whether Alvinzi succeeded in throwing provisions into the 
garrison or not. That Wurmser was in great want of pro- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 29 

visions is certain, and to relieve liim in this respect was the 
great object of the attack of the Austrians on Bonaparte. 

" You will also have heard of the attempt by the French 
to make a descent on Ireland. The weather defeated it ; 
but the greatest part of the vessels sent on this wild expedi- 
tion have returned safe to France. We do not know precise- 
ly how Mr. Pinkney stands at Paris, He has not been re- 
ceived, and the papers here state that he is about to leave 
Paris for Amsterdam, to wait the orders of his government ; 
but this wants confirmation. 

" The Emperor of Kussia seems to embarrass all the bel- 
ligerents. An universal pacification is supposed to be his 
object. He has much in his power ; and it is fervently to be 
wished that he may make a proper use of his situation. 

" Our commission has experienced some unexpected em- 
baiTassments, but the government has removed them in a 
way highly honorable and satisfactory. The king's agent 
objected to our jurisdiction in a case — a leading feature of 
which was that the Lords Commissioners of ajopeal had af- 
firmed the original condemnation. When the fifth commis- 
sioner. Gore, and myself were ready to overrule this objection, 
our right to decide upon our oivn jurisdiction was brought 
into question ! The government has said that both points 
were against those who started them, and we are now pros- 
perously under way again. I have no fears of a fair execu- 
tion of the 7th article by this country. 

" This letter is becoming so unreasonably long, that I 
will only add that I am in every sense of the word yom' sin- 
cere friend. 

" P. S. — When you go to Baltimore, if you should have 
any curiosity to know the precise nature of the embarrass- 
ments above alluded to, Mr. Chase will show you an explana- 
tion of them which I send him by the same vessel which car- 
ries this ; be good enough to wiite to me as often as your 
leisure will allow. Mr. McDonald (one of the commissioners 



t 

30 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

on the part of tliis government under the 6th article of the 
Treaty), who is just on the point of sailing for America, I am 
acquainted with. If you should meet him, I need not 
ask you to attend to him when I inform you that he is an 
amiable, well-informed gentleman, and carries with him the 
best disposition towards our country." 



MK. PINKNEY TO HIS BROTHER JONATHAN. 

"London, lUh April, 1799. 

" Dear J. : — I have received your letter of the 4th of 
March, inclosing one for Mr. Trumbull ; but that of the 
17th of April, covering a duplicate of Mr. Trumbull's letter, 
I have not received. Mr. T. has charged me with his thanks 
for your attention, and wOl, I presume, write to you him- 
self. 

" I am grieved by the style of your letter. If I have 
neglected you, it has not been from want of affection or for- 
getfulness of what I owe to your worth. I did not know 
that it would be acceptable to you to hear very often or very 
fully from me ; and if on that account I have sometimes 
made you trust to others for tidings of me, and at other 
times have wiitten rather scantily on subjects that might 
have been interesting to you, I ask to be forgiven. 

" To say the truth, a long letter of a mere friendly com- 
plexion is not easily made. It would be idle to give you in 
such a letter the news of the moment, for the news would 
cease to be so before the letter could reach you ; and I should 
fatigue you to death if I were to doom you to read accounts 
of London amusements, or of the manner in which I pass my 
time. Such details would soon have no novelty to recom- 
mend them, and would lose all attraction. 

" I have seen in this countiy, and continue to see much 
that deserves the attention of him that would be wise or 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 31 

happy ; but I would prefer making all this the subject of 
conversation, when Providence shall permit us to meet again, 
to putting it imperfectly on paper for your perusal when we 
are separated. There is not perhaps a more dangerous thing 
for him who aims at consistency, or at least the appearance 
of it, than to hasten to record impressions as they are made 
upon his mind by a state of .things to which he has not been 
accustomed, and to give that record out of his own posses- 
sion. I have made conclusions here, from time to time, which 
I have afterwards discarded as. absurd ; and I could wish 
that some of these conclusions did not show themselves in 
more than one of the letters I have occasionally written to 
my friends. I have made false estimates of men and things, 
and have corrected them as I have been able ; in this there 
was nothing to blush for, for who is there that can say he 
has not done the same ? But I confess that I do feel some 
little regret, when I remember that I have sent a few (though 
to say the truth, venj feiv) of those estimates across the 
Atlantic, as indisputably accurate, and have either deceived 
those to whom they were sent, or afforded them grounds for 
thinking me a precipitate or superficial observer. The con- 
sciousness of this has indisposed me to a repetition of simi- 
lar conduct ; and I have desired so to write in future as to 
be able to change ill-founded opinions without the hazard of 
being convicted of capriciousness or folly. You will observe 
that I am all this time endeavoring to make my peace with 
you on the score of your complaint of negligence ; but after 
all, I must in great measure rely upon your disposition to 
bear with my faults, and to overlook those you cannot fully 
acquit. I must not, however, omit to state my belief that you 
do not receive all the letters I send you, and of course that 
I appear to you more culpable than I really am. 

" I wish I could tell you when I shall be likely to see 
you ; although my time passes in a way highly gratifying, I 
am anxious to return. Our acquaintance has lately very 



32 LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

much enlarged itself, and our situation is altogether peculiar- 
ly pleasant for foreigners ; but I sigh now and then for home. 
I am told I am considerably altered since I came here, and I 
incline to think there is some foundation for it ; but I shall 
not grow much wiser or better by a longer stay. I am be- 
coming famihar with almost every thing around me, and do 
not look out upon life with as ^uch intentness of observa- 
tion as heretofore, and of course I am now rather confirming 
former acquisitions of knowledge than laying in new stores 
for the future — I begin to languish for my profession — I want 
active employment. The business of the commission does 
not occupy me sufficiently, and visiting, &c., with the aid of 
much reading, cannot supply the deficiency. My time is al- 
ways filled in some way or other ; but I think I should be 
the better for a speech now and then. Perhaps another 
twelvemonth may give me the opportunity of making speeches 
till I get tired of them — and tire others too. 

" There are some respects in which it may be better that 
I should remain here a little longer ; my health, though 
greatly mended, is still dehcate — I looh better than I am ; 
and perhaps a summer at Brighton or Cheltenham may make 
me stronger. The last winter has been unfavorable to me, 
by afi'ecting my stomach severely, and I have at this mo- 
ment the same aflection in a less degree accompanied with a 
considerable headache. I ought to have good health, for I 
take pains to acquire it ; and have even gone so far as to 
abandon the use of tobacco, to which I was once a slave. It 
is now about eighteen months since I have tasted this per- 
nicious weed ; but I did not forbear the use of it solely on 
account of my health ; I found that it was considered here 
as a vulgar habit, which he who desired society must discard." 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 33 



MR. PINKNEY TO THE SAME. 



"London, \Uh February, 1800. 

" Dear J. : — It is now so long since I have had a line 
from you that I must conclude I have been unlucky enough 
to give you offence, for which it is necessary I should atone. 
What it can be I have no means of conjecturing ; but let it 
be what it may, you ought to believe that it has been wholly 
accidental. You complained to me some time ago that I was a 
negligent correspondent ; I explained the cause, and asked to 
be forgiven. If that explanation did not satisfy you, at 
least my prayer of pardon had some claim to be well receiv- 
ed. I think I know you so well that I may venture to be 
certain you are not angry with me for the old reason. There 
must be some new ground of exception. Let me know it, I 
entreat you, and I will make amends as far as I am able. I 
had indeed hoped that it would not be for ordinary matters 
that you would forget my claims to your friendship, if not 
your affection. I had supposed that you would not lightly 
have been induced to treat me as a stranger ; and to substi- 
tute the cold intercourse of ceremony for that of the heart. 
Why will you allow me to be disappointed in expectations so 
reasonable, and so justly founded on the natural goodness of 
your disposition, and the soundness of your understanding ? 
Can you imagine that I do not recollect how much I am in- 
debted to your kindness on various occasions, and how strong 
is your title to my attachment and respect ? If I have ap- 
peared to slight your letters by sometimes giving them short 
answers, and sometimes delaying to give them any, can you 
think so meanly of me as to suppose that therefore I have 
not placed a proper value on them and you ? I declare to 
God that if you have made this supposition, you have been 
unjust both to yourself and me. There is not a person on 
earth for whom I have a more warm and sincere regard, nor 
3 



34 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

is there one whose correspondence, while you permitted it to 
last, was more truly grateful to me, I beg you, therefore, 
to resume it, and to resume it cordially. But if, after all, 
you are so different from yourself as to persist in regarding 
me as one who has no better ties upon you than the rest of 
the world, at least tell me why it is that this must be so. 

" Of the late revolution in France and of Bonaparte's 
advances to negotiation, with the rejection of these advances, 
you will have heard before this can reach you. I Avas pres- 
ent very lately in the House of Commons at the debate on 
the rejection of these overtures. So able and eloquent a 
speech as Mr. Pitt's on that occasion I never witnessed. Ex- 
perience only can decide how far the conduct he vindicated 
was wise. Administration have undoubtedly sanguine hopes 
of restoring the House of Bourbon ; and prodigious efforts 
will be made during the next campaign with that object. I 
do not think that this will succeed. The co-operation of 
Russia still remains equivocal ; but even if Russia should 
give all her strength to the confederacy, it will not have 
power to force upon France the ancient dynasty of ^ that coun- 
try with all the consequences inseparable from it. The present 
government of that ill-fated nation is a mockery — a rank 
usurpation by which political freedom is annihilated ; but it 
is a government of energy, and will be made yet more so by 
an avowed attempt to overturn it by a foreign army in fa- 
vor of the exiled family. This is my opinion ; but the war 
in Europe has so often changed its aspect against all calcula- 
tion that prophecies about its future results, are hardly worth 
the making. The death of G-eneral Washington has ascer- 
tained how greatly he was every where admired. The pane- 
gyrics that all parties here have combined to bestow upon 
his character have equalled those in America. 

" p. g, — ^As our commission is at a stand on account of 
the disagreements under the American commission, I can 
form no guess as to the probable time of my return. There 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 35 

is little prospect, however, of its being very soon. I must be 
patient, and am determined to see it out ; but I wish most 
ardently to revisit my country and my friends. I think it 
likely that my brother commissioner. Gore, will take a trip 
to America next summer, and come back in the course of 
the autumn. L am afraid we shall both have leisure enough 
for a voyage to the East Indies. I have nothing to do here 
but to visit, read, write, and so forth. In this idle course I 
certainly grow older and perhaps a little wiser ; but T am 
doing nothing to expedite my return. 

" Pray can you make out to send me a box of Spanish 
cigars ? If you can, I will thank you ; for I find it benefi- 
cial to smoke a cigar or two before I go to bed. This I do 
by stealth, and in a room devoted to that purpose ; for smok- 
ing here is considered a most ungentlemanlike practice. Hav- 
ing left ofi" chewing tobacco, which was prejudicial to me, I 
have taken up the habit of smoking to a very limited extent 
in lieu of it ; and as I find it serviceable to me, and nobody 
knoivs it, I think I shall continue it. Eemember me affec- 
tionately to Ninian, and teU him I mean to write to him 
soon. Mrs. Pinkuey hears that William is able to write 
something Hke a letter. If this be so, she begs you will re- 
quest Ninian to make him "write to her." 



MR. PINKNEY TO THE SAME. 

"LoxDOX, August 21(h, 1800. 

" Dear J. : I received your letter of the 27th May, while 
in the country, and delayed answering it till my return to 
town. For your good intentions relative to the cigars, I am 
much obliged to you, and I heartily wish it was in my power 
to thank you for the cigars themselves, of which I have heard 
nothing otherwise than in your letter. Perhaps I may stiU 
get them — ^but I have not much hopes. Make my acknowl- 



36 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 

edgments to Mr. Williams for the box you speak of as be- 
ing a present from him. As there is no person for whom I 
feel a more warm and sincere regard, and upon whose friend- 
ship I more value myself, you may be assured that this little 
proof of his recollection gives me the greatest pleasure. I 
shall not easily forget the many kind attentions I have re- 
ceived from him ; nor can I ever be more happy than when 
an opportunity shall occur of showing the sense I entertain 
of them. 

" Whether the justification you offer for ceasing to write 
to me is a sound one or not, it is not worth while to inquire. 
You liave written at last, and this puts out of the question 
all past omissions. Perhaps we have been both to blame — 
or perhaps the fault has been wholly mine. I will not dis- 
pute with you on this point, but I entreat that in future it 
may be understood between us that trifles are not to be 
allowed to bring into doubt our regard for each other, and 
that our intercourse is not to be regulated by the rules of a 
rigorous ceremony. While I admit what you urge in regard 
to my neglect of you, I take leave to enter my protest in 
the strongest terms against the general charge made in your 
letter that I have neglected several others in the same way. 
I have had no correspondent in America (I have excepted 
you) who has not generally been in my debt. The truth is, 
my friends have overlooked me in a strange way, and I have 
been compelled to jog their memories more than perhaps I 
ought to have done. As to Ninian, you know very well that 
in writing to you I considered myself as writing to him ; for 
I did not imagine it was desirable that I should make two 
letters, which should be little more than duplicates, when 
one would serve just as well. But since I have discovered 
that Ninian washed me to write to liim, I have taken plea- 
sure in doing so ; and for some time past, I think he has no 
cause to complain of me on this score. 

" It is my earnest wish to return home without loss of 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 37 

time, and to apply in earnest to my profession for tlie pur- 
pose of securing, while my faculties are unimpaired, a com- 
petence for my helpless family. For several months past I 
have thought of desiring from my government to he recalled, 
and if the prospect of our resuming our functions does not 
greatly change for the better before next spring, I shall un- 
doubtedly have recourse to this step. At present, it is not 
practicable to form even a conjecture upon this subject. 
We have been stopped by the difficulties that have occurred 
under the 6th article of the treaty, and not by any thing 
depending on ourselves, or connected with our own duties. 
If we had not been thus arrested in our progress, we should 
have finished ere now, or at farthest by Christmas, to the 
satisfaction of all parties. The arrangement under the Gth 
article will be accomplished, I am afraid, veiy slowly, if at 
all; and even when that arrangement shall be made, the 
execution of it will demand several years ; and we are not, it 
seems, to outstrip the advances it shall make. Thus it is 
probable that I shall grow old in this country, unless I re- 
sign. In short, I see very Uttle room to doubt that I shall 
be driven to this expedient. So much for the mismanage- 
ment and folly of other people ! 

" The commission in America has been wretchedly bun- 
gled. I am entirely convinced that with discretion and mod- 
eration a better result might have been obtained ; be this 
as it may, it is time for me to think seriously of revisiting 
ray country, and of employing myself in a profitable pursuit. 
I shall soon begin to require ease and retirement ; my con- 
stitution is weak and my health precarious. A few years of 
professional labor will bring me into the sear and yellow 
leaf of life; and if I do not begin speedily, I shall begin too 
late. To commence the world at forty is indeed dreadful ; 
but I am used to adverse fortune, and know how to struggle 
with it ; my consolations cannot easily desert me — the 
consciousness of honorable views, and the cheering hope 



38 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

that Providence will yet enable me to pass my age in 
peace. It is not of small importance to me that I shall go 
back to the bar cured of every propensity that could divert 
me from business — stronger than when I left it — and, I trust, 
somewhat wiser. In regard to legal knowledge, I shall not 
be worse than if I had continued ; I have been a regular and 
industrious student for the last two years, and I believe my- 
self to be a much better lawyer than when I arrived in Eng- 
land. There are other respects, too, in which I hope I have 
gained something — how much, my friends must judge. But 
I am wearying you with prattle about myself, for which I 
ask you to excuse me. 

" I received Ninian's letter by Mr. Gore, but have not 
now time to answer it. I wrote him very lately. Eequest 
him to get from Mr. Vanhorne the note-book, or note-books 
I lent him, and to take care of them for me. In one of my 
note-books I made some few reports of General Court and 
Chancery decisions. Let it be taken care of When I write 
again, I hope to be able to state when it is probable I shall 
have a chance of seeing you. When I do return, it is my 
present intention to settle at Annapohs, unless I go to the 
federal city. No certainty yet of peace — but I continue to 
prophesy (notwithstanding the Emperor of Eussia's troops) 
that a continental peace will soon take place. The affair be- 
tween this country and Denmark will probable be settled by 
Denmark's yielding the point. I have no opinion of the 
armed neutrality so much talked of It could do nothing 
now, if it were formed — but I doubt the fact of its forma- 
tion." 



MR. PINKNEY TO HIS BROTHEE NINIAN. 

" London, July 2\sf, 180L 

" Dear N. : — Keport has certainly taken great liberties 
with my letter to Mr. Thompson. Undoubtedly I have 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 39 

never written to any person sentiments that go the length 
you state. When the contest for President was reduced to 
Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr, my judgment was fixed that 
the former ought to be preferred— and I went so far as to 
think that his superiority in every particular that gives a 
title to respect and confidence, was so plain and decided as 
to leave no room for an impartial and unprejudiced man to 
hesitate in giving him his voice. Of course, it is probable 
that in reference to the result of this competition, when it was 
known, I have expressed myself in some of my letters to my 
friends as highly pleased, and that before it was known, I ex- 
pressed my wishes that the event might be such as it has 
been. It is highly probable too that, even before the con- 
test was brought to this alternative, I have said that, what- 
ever may have been my wishes, I felt no alarms at the idea 
of Mr. Jefferson's success. I do not remember that I have 
said thus much, but I believe it to be likely, because it would 
have been true. 

" I have at all times thought highly of Mr. Jefferson, and 
have never been backward to say so. I have never seen, or 
fancied I saw, in the perspective of his administration the 
calamities and disasters, the anticipation of which has filled 
so many with terror and dismay. 

" I thought it certain that a change of meii would follow 
his elevation to power — but I did not forbode from it any 
such change of measures as would put in hazard the public 
happiness. I believed, and do still believe him to be too 
wise not to comprehend, and too honest not to pursue, the 
substantial interests of the United States, which it is in fact 
almost impossible to mistake, and which he has every possible 
motive to secure and promote. I did not credit the sugges- 
tions that unworthy prejudices against one nation, or childish 
predilection for another, woidd cause him to commit the 
growing ]3rosperity of his country to the chances of a war, 
by which much might be lost, but nothing could be gained, 



40 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

except the fruits of petty hostility and base pillage on the 
ocean. I did not credit, and often did not understand, the 
vague assertions that he was a disorganizer — an enemy to all 
efficient government — a democrat — an infidel, &c. &c. 

" In the past conduct of Mr. Jefierson, so far as it had 
come to my knowledge, I discovered no just foundation for 
these assertions — and I am not to he influenced by mere 
clamor, from whatsoever quarter it may come. In short, I 
never could persuade myself to tremble lest the United 
States should find in the presidency of Mr. Jefierson the 
evils which might be expected to flow from a weak or a wicked 
government, I am, on the contrary, satisfied that he has 
talents, knowledge, integrity, and stake in the country suffi- 
cient to give us well-founded confidence, that our affairs will 
be well administered so far as shaU depend on him ; although 
he may not always perhaps make use of exactly the same 
means and agents that our partialities or peculiar opinions 
might induce us to wish. 

" I hope you are deceived as to the possible consequences 
of the ensuing State elections. What has Mr. Jefferson's 
being President of the United States to do with your Gen- 
eral Court, Chancery, &c.? Without tracing the peril in 
which these establishments manifestly are, to the ascendency 
of this or that political party in the nation at large, it may 
be found in the local interests of the different counties at any 
distance from the seat of justice — in the interests of the 
attorneys who swarm in every part of the State, and in the 
House of Delegates — in the plausible and popular nature of 
the theory that justice should be brought home to men's 
doois, and that it should be cheap, easy, and expeditious — in 
the love of change which half the world believe to be synon- 
ymous with improvement — in the disgust of parties who have 
lost their cause and their money at Annapolis or Easton, and 
who imagine they would have done better in the county 
court — and in a thousand other causes that a long speech 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 41 

only could enumerate. Five years ago your House of Dele- 
gates voted the abolition of the General Court, and yet 
Maryland was at that time in high reputation as a federal 
State. The Senate, it is true, rojccted the bill ; not, howev- 
er, because they were more federal than the House of Dele- 
gates, but simply because they had good sense enough to 
perceive that the bill was a very foolish affair ; and I have 
confidence that your next Senate, whether Mr. Jefferson's 
partisans or opposers, will manifest the same soundness of 
mind and firmness of conduct, I profess I am a good deal 
surprised that you at Annapolis, who are interested locally, 
as well as generally, in preserving the General Court, &c., 
should be so imprudent as to cause it to be understood that 
you consider the whole of a great and triumphant party in 
the State as hostile upon principle to these establishments. 
For my part I would hold the opposite language, and would 
industriously circulate my unalterable conviction that tliis 
was no party question, but such a one as every honest man, 
a friend to the prosperity of Maryland, and to the purity of 
justice, cannot fail to oppose. By making a party question 
of it, you are in greater danger of a defeat than you other- 
wise would be, because you may give party men inducements 
to vote for it who in a different and more correct view of the 
subject might vote the other way. You are on the spot, 
however, and must have better means of judging on this 
head than I have. No man would lament more sincerely 
than I should do, the destruction of what I consider the fair- 
est ornaments of our judicial system. If I was among you, 
I would spare no honest effort to stem the torrent of innova- 
tion, which has long been threatening the superior courts, 
and will finally overthrow them. But I should not believe 
that I was promoting my object by putting in array against 
me, and insisting on considering and treating as adversaries, 
a numerous and zealous body of men with whom I happened 



42 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

to differ on some other topic, and who perhaps, if I would al- 
low them to take their own stations, would be found on my 
side." 

MK. PINKNEY TO THE SAME. 

"London, July 21s<, 1803. 

" Dear N. : — I received your kind letter of the 31st of 
May on yesterday. You had omitted to write to me for so 
great a length of time, that I had despaired of again hearing 
fi'om you during my stay in England. Your letter has, of 
course, given me more than usual pleasure. 

" I offer you my congratulations on your marriage, which 
you have now for the first time announced to me. Mrs. P. 
desires me also to offer you hers. We both wish you all the 
happiness you can yourself desire. 

" It is now certain that I am not to see you this year. 
Our commission will, however, close next winter, and in April 
or May, if I live and do well, I sliall undoubtedly be with 
you. In the mean time, such insinuations as you mention, 
let them come from what quarter they will (and I can form 
no conjecture whence they come), can give me no uneasiness. 
I am not so inordinately fond of praise as to be disappointed 
or provoked, when I am told that there are some who either 
do or affect to think less of my capacity than I would have 
them. What station you allude to I am wholly unable to 
judge, but I know that I have never solicited any. I am no 
office-hunter. Without professing to shun public employ- 
ment when it seeks me, I can truly say that I disdain to 
seek it. My reliance, both for character and fortune, is, un- 
der Providence, on my profession, to which I shall imme- 
diately return, and in the practice of which I do not fear to 
silence those insinuators. What I am must soon be seen 
and known. The bar is not a place to acquire or preserve a 
false or fraudulent reputation for talents ; and I feel what is 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 43 

I hope, no more than a just and honorable confidence, in 
which I may indulge without vanity, that on that theatre I 
shall he able to make my depredators acknowledge that they 
have undervalued me. 

" I shall mingle too in the poHtics of my country on my 
return (I mean as a private citizen only) ; and then I shall 
not fail to give the world an opportunity of judging both of 
my head and my heart. Enough of this. 

" I have constantly beHeved that America has nothing to 
fear from the men now at the head of our affairs — and in 
this I think you will soon agree with me, notwithstanding 
the interested clamor of their adversaries. Time will show 
in what hands the public power in America can be most 
safety deposited. To that test you will do well to refer 
yourself. In the mean time it appears to be a rational con- 
fidence that no party can long abuse that power with impu- 
nity." 



MR. PINKNEY TO MR. COOKE. 

"London, August Sth, 1803. 

" My Dear Sir : — The kindness of your last letter, which 
I received about a week ago, and which I shall long bear in 
mind, will not allow me to forego the pleasure of writing you 
once more (though but a few lines) during my stay in Eng- 
land. I say once more, because I trust that early in the spring 
I shall commence my voyage for America, and of course 
shall have no inducement to write again. I was entirely 
convinced before the receipt of your last, that your letter 
of December, on the subject of the Maryland business, was 
dictated, as you say, by friendship ; and I not only felt all 
the value of the motive, but thanked you sincerely for the 
communication itself 

" I had not heard of your rejection of the appointment to 



44 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

the Court of Appeals, and I am truly sorry that you have 
rejected it. Of the circumstances attending the offer, or the 
views by which it was either influenced or resisted, I know 
nothing ; but I know that the appointment would have been 
the best that could have been made ; and I believe that the 
public have a right to your services, now that it is no longer 
necessary that you should labor for yourself, I have, however, 
so much reliance on the correctness of your judgment, that 
I must presume you have done right, and that I see only 
half the subject. 

" I am prepared on my return to find the spirit of party 
as high and frenzied as the most turbulent would have it, 
I am even prepared to find a brutality in that spirit which 
in this country either does not exist, or is kept down by the 
predominance of a better feeling, I lament with you that 
this is so ; and I wonder that it is so — ^for the American people 
are generous, and liberal, and enlightened. We are not, I 
hope, to have this inordinate zeal, this extravagant fanaticism, 
entailed upon us — although really one might almost suppose 
it to be a part of our political creed that internal tranquillity, 
or rather the absence of domestic discord, and a rancorous 
contention for power, was incompatible with the health of 
the state, and the liberty of the citizen, I profess to be 
temperate in my opinions, and shall put in my claim to 
freedom of conscience ; but when both sides are intolerant, 
what hope can I have that this claim wUl be respected ? At 
the bar I must contrive as well as I can, for I must return 
to it. I have no alternative : and if I had, choice would 
carry me back to the profession. I do not desire ojice, al- 
though I have no such objections to the present adminis- 
tration, as, on what are called party principles, would induce 
me to decline public employment. It is my wish to be a mere 
professional laborer — to cultivate my friends and my family, 
and to secure an honorable independence before I am over- 
taken by age and infirmity. My present intention is to fix 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 45 

in Baltimore, where I will flatter myself I shall find some 
who will not regret my choice of residence. I had under- 
stood with unfeigned concern the severe loss you alude to, 
and knew the pain it would occasion. You have, however, 
the best of consolations in those whom she has left behind ; 
and it is my earnest wish that they may be long spared to 
you, and you to them. In a family like yours every loss 
must be deeply felt ; for none can be taken away without 
diminishing the stock of worth and happiness to which each 
is so well calcidated to contribute. But you have still about 
you enough to preseiTe to life all that belongs to it of inter- 
est and value, to which, my dear sir, you can add that which 
many cannot, the perfect consciousness of having deserved it. 
I beg you to remember me in the most friendly terms to 
your sons, and to present our affectionate compliments to 
Mrs. Cooke." 



MR. PINKNEY TO THE SAME. 

"London, February 15th, 1804. 

" My Deiar Sir : — Your letter of the 2d of December, 
which I received on the 23d of last month, is among the 
most pleasing of the many proofs wliich my long absence 
from America has procured me of your valuable friendship. 
It is not in my power to manifest by words the sensibility 
which such kindness excites in my heart. I must leave it 
to time therefore to offer me other means. 

"The application to the government of the United 
States, for an outfit, was the joint application of Mr. Gore 
and myself; and as it was addressed wholly to the justice of 
the government, and asked no favor, I did not suppose that 
it would be proper to endeavor to interest my friends "gener- 
ally in its success. It seemed to me that this would have 
argued a distrust either of the claim itself, or of those to 



46 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

whom it was preferred ; and as I really had the most perfect 
confidence in both, I was not disposed to act as if I had none. 
Accordingly, I mentioned the subject only to General Smith, 
as a Senator of the United States, requesting of him, in case 
the President should lay it before Congress, such explanations 
and support as it might seem to him to require, and his view 
of it (as a demand of right) would justify. More than this, 
I could not prevail upon myself to do, although I began 
several letters to diff erent persons whose good offices I thought 
I might venture to ask. General Smith has answered my 
letter, and otherwise acted on this occasion in a way to de- 
serve my particular thanks. I have no doubt, however, that 
the claim has been rejected ; and I understand that I am 
not likely to derive much consolation for this rejection, from 
the manner in which our application has been received and 
treated. It would not be proper to say more upon a trans- 
action of which I have at present such scanty knowledge, 
and the result of which may not be such as I conjecture it 
to be. 

" General Smith mentions another matter, of which you 
also take notice — I mean the desire expressed by some gen- 
tlemen of Baltimore, who have been benefited by my services 
in England, to make me some pecuniary acknowledgment. 
My answer, written in a hurry, and therefore, perhaps, not 
exactly what it ought to be, declines this proposal, for which, 
however, I cannot but be sincerely thankful to those from 
whom it proceeds. General Smith will probably show you 
my letter, and I should be glad that you would even ask him 
to do so. 

"As to the arrangement of a loan, it is liable, in sub- 
stance, to all the objections applicable to the other, and 
consequently inadmissible. I must, therefore, do as well as 
I can with my own resources — and I have the satisfaction to 
know that I shall leave England with my credit untouched, 
and in no tradesman's debt. If it will distress me to return 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 47 

to Maryland, witli my large family (as I am not ashamed to con- 
fess it will), I shall at least have to sustain me under it, the 
consciousness that no vice has contributed to produce it — 
that my honor has no stain upon it — and that although it 
may be a misfortune to become poor in the public service, it 
is no crime. For the rest, I rely upon Providence and my 
own erForts in my profession. 

" I am not ashamed, my dear sir, that almost every 
word of this letter has myself for its subject ; and I should 
be yet more so, if I did not recollect that it is to you, who 
have encouraged me thus to play the egotist. I am not 
likely, however, to sin in this respect, at least for some time, 
as I hope to leave this country in March, for the United 
States, and shall of course be under no temptation to write 
again, even to you. 

" The affair of the Maryland stock is in train, and I have 
now a fair j^rospect of settling it (as I hope satisfactorily) 
after much anxiety, vexation and difficulty. A week or 
two more will, I trust, conclude it. I shall not make any 
communication on this subject to the government of the 
United States, or of Maryland, until I am enabled to say 
that the stock has been transfen-ed. Some sacrifice on our 
part has been found indispensable — but if with that sacrifice 
the residue can be immediately secured, we ought, in my 
opinion, to rejoice. That business closed, I shall only wait 
for a vessel sufficient to accommodate my family, bound to 
Baltimore. None has yet offered — and I begin to have some 
fears on that score. I must have patience." 



Mr. Pinkney was absent from the United States until 
August, 1804, when he returned once more to the spot he 
most loved on earth, to begin again at the age of forty the 
struggles of the forum. He returned however with a mind 
enriched with foreign travel, panting to gain fresh laurels, 
and stimulated by the master minds of the Law, in the mo- 



48 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

ther country, in contact with whom he had been brought by 
the business of his mission. He led a very active life 
while abroad. He observed every thing worthy of note, and 
studied every thing he saw. His society was much sought 
by distinguished noblemen and commoners, and it was his 
happiness to form some warm friendships, which relieved the 
period of his temporary exile. He continued to pursue with 
unabated ardor and energy his professional studies, and kept 
up his habit of extempore speaking in private. Nothing 
was permitted to entice him from this severe mental disci- 
pline and labor. With the eye of an intelligent and discrim- 
inating critic he instituted a comparison between the bar of 
England and that of the United States ; — and the compari- 
son was far from being prejudicial to the rising character of 
his countrymen. Privileged to sit within the bar of the 
English parliament, he was a constant frequenter of the de- 
bates of that body; and was therefore qualified to form and 
express his opinion. He made the most of his circumstan- 
ces, and appropriated with consummate skill all the benefits of 
this close and critical analysis of the legal and parliamentary 
mind of England. 

By this course of patient application, and constant prac- 
tice in private of the habit of speaking (kept up and per- 
severed in, amid the brilHant displays of a Parliament pre- 
eminently distinguished for oratorical ability), he retained 
all his freshness as an advocate, and entered on the re- 
newal of professional conflict, as though he had not aban- 
doned for a moment the courts of justice. Baltimore was 
the field selected for the re-commencement of his labors. He 
no sooner entered upon it than business flowed in, and he 
found himself occupied with a practice extremely lucrative. 
He took his stand at the head of the Marjdand Bar, and 
won honors in every contest. His arguments enlightened 
the tribunals he addressed, and the courts acknowledged his 
supremacy. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 49 

In 1805 he was appointed Attorney-General of the State. 
This office he consented to hold for the benefit of one of liis 
early and most revered friends, between whom and himself 
there existed a warm personal attachment. I allude to Mr. 
Johnson, who was afterwards the Chancellor of Maryland, a 
gentleman of uncommon force of intellect and purity of 
character — the father of the Hon, Reverdy Johnson and 
John Johnson, the former one of the very first lawyers of 
the Union, who as Senator and Attorney-General of the 
United States displayed a statesmanlike ability and profound 
legal learning which have won for him a most enviable dis- 
tinction ; and the latter, the present accompUshed and able 
Chancellor of the State. 

In 1806 he was again sent to England to assist Mr. Mon- 
roe in the adjustment of our difiicult and delicate negotia- 
tions with that august and mighty nation. This appoint- 
ment he received from President Jefferson, The mode in 
which it was conferred was alike honorable to each. He was 
chosen for his pecuHar fitness for the work, and solicited to 
accept the trust for the good of the country. In a letter 
from Mr. Jefferson (now given to the public for the first 
time), in his own beautiful autograph, from which I copy, 
dated August 5th, 1809, I find the following explicit lan- 
guage : 

" I am happy in an occasion of expressing to you my 
great esteem for you personally, and the satisfaction with 
which I noted the correctness, both as to matter and manner, 
with which you discharged the public duties you iverc so I'ind 
as to undertake at my request. 

" I witnessed too, with pleasure, the esteem with which 
you inspired my successor, then more immediately engaged 
in correspondence with you. Accept the just tribute of 
mine also, and of my great respect and consideration." 

It is refreshing at this day to look back to the time 
when a pubHc trust so delicate and important was assumed, 
4 



50 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

as a kind compliance with the earnest request of the Presi- 
dent, with whom was lodged the appointing power. Mr. 
Pinkney had been abroad. He was at this time in the full 
j&ush of professional success, amassing a fortune for his large 
and helpless family, with nothing to desire but health and 
strength to reap the field that was literally groaning beneath 
the burden of the harvest. He was exactly in the sphere he 
most coveted to fill, when the eye of the President was 
turned towards him — a President, too, whom he could be 
scarcely said to know except by name and a large reputation. 
He was called to turn aside once more from the forum, and 
the scenes he most loved to contemplate, and the circle of 
friends in which he most delighted ; and embark on a mis- 
sion that promised nothing but toil and self-sacrifice. It was 
the call of the country, however, and his jDatriot heart beat 
responsive to it. A kind compliance with the President's 
request was the thing asked of him, and the boon was no 
sooner asked than granted. 

The manner in which he executed this trust, or after- 
wards filled the sole responsibilities of Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary to the court of St. James, will be discussed in another 
portion of this memoir. 

It may be refreshing to pause a mortient in our naiTative, 
and turn to the corresj)ondence of Mr. Pinkney, and see 
what was the state of his mind, his views and feelings, dur- 
ing this his second embassage to England. 



ME. PINKNEY TO HIS BEOTHER NINIAN. 

"London, April 28th, 1808. 

" Dear N. : — I received a few days ago your very short 
letter on a very large sheet of paper. I expected a volume, 
and was obliged to put up with half a dozen lines. This 
is not well. After all, it is so much clear gain to hear from 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 51 

you ; and, giving you credit for good intentions and a good 
stock of affection, I thank you for your letter, which furnish- 
es much evidence of both. 1 should have been gratified 
undoubtedly by a little intelligence about Annapolis, the 
health of friends, and so forth ; but you will give me all 
these in your next letter ; and so we will settle the account. 

" I congratulate you on the growth of your daughter. 
She is, I doubt not, worthy of all your care, and will, I sin- 
cerely hope and trust, give you many a delightful hour, em- 
ployed in watching her improvement, and cultivating and 
forming her mind and manners : the purest, the most com- 
pletely unmixed of all our enjoyments ; for even its anxieties 
are happiness ! 

" How does it happen that Jonathan has not written to 
me ? It is odd enough that I, who seem to have a host of 
friends, as kind as heart could wish, when I am in Maryland, 
appear to have none the moment I leave it. This is poor 
encouragement to travel. I think, if ever I live to get back 
to the fontes et fiumina nafce, this consideration will induce 
me to make a vow to quit them no more on any errand 
whatever. Even you recollect me only when some striking 
event forces me, as it were, upon you ; and Jonathan of 
course forgets me, because I keep no cash at the Farmers' 
Bank. Notwithstanding all this, remember me to him in 
the most affectionate manner. Tell him I think of him of- 
ten. How I think of him he need not be told. 

" I have been more frequently indisposed within the last 
six months, than has been usual with me. I am, indeed, 
just recovered from an attack. Too much employment and 
some inquietude may have laid me open to these indisposi- 
tions. The climate does not suit me as well as it did. I 
hope to do better in future ; but these warnings are not to 
be slighted. 

" You have not mentioned the Governor in any of your 
letters. You must like him, I am sure ; for he is of a lib- 



52 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

eral, generous temper. I do not meet with your newspapers 
as often as I could wish ; but, from those I have seen, the 
Governor's conduct appears to have been active, spirited, and 
judicious on every occasion that has occurred since his first 
appointment. It was to have been confidently expected 
that it should be so. His principles have always been those 
of ardent patriotism ; and his mind, naturally strong and 
vigorous, has been enlightened by great experience. In my 
letter to him by Mr. Kose (which, as Mr. Eose did not go 
to Annapolis as he expected, was not perhaps delivered), I 
asked to have the pleasure of hearing from him when he 
should have a leisure hour wliich he could not otherwise em- 
ploy. Will you take an opportunity of intimating this to 
him ? Eemind Mr. H. and Mr. D. of me. Tell them 
that they neglect me ; but that I remember them with as 
much cordial esteem as ever. Where is my friend, Mr. E. ? 
If you should see him, say to him for me a thousand kind 
things. Inform Mr. M. that I wrote to him last autumn ; 
but fear my letter miscarried. As to Mr. C, he has given 
me up entirely. There are many other friends of whom I 
could speak ; but I have not time. There is one, however, 
of whom I will find time to speak ; and to her I beg you to 
say that she sliares in aU the regard I feel for you." 



MR. PINKNEY TO THE SAME. 

"LoNDox, August 2'ith, 1808. 

" Dear N. : — I have had the pleasure to receive your 
letter of the 16th of July, and am happy to see that you do 
not forget me. 

" I should reluctantly quarrel with your domestic felicity ; 
but I might perhaps be in danger of doing so, if it appeared 
to engross you so entirely as to leave no leisure for a recollec- 
tion now and then of us who are absent. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 53 

"The letter of which you speak (inclosing one from 
Mrs. P.) came safe to hand ; and if it had not, I should 
have invented half a dozen apologies for you. I know you 
so well, that, when you appear to neglect me, I am ready to 
throw the hlame upon fortune, upon accident (who are, I 
suspect, the same personages), upon every thing, and every 
body, rather than upon you. 

" My health has been rather worse than I wished it ; but 
I am now convalescent. A short absence from town (my 
family are still out of town), sea-air and sea-bathing, have 
put me up again. 

" Such a result of my labors for the public as you would 
flatter me with, would make me, I doubt not, the healthiest 
man in England. There is a sort of moral health, however, 
which crosses, and difficulties, and disappointments, tend 
very much to promote. I must endeavor to console myself 
with the opinion that I have laid in a good stock of that 
while I was losing some of the other. 

" After all this philosophizing, I am half inclined to envy 
you the smooth, even tenor of your life. You are every 
way happy — at home — abroad. Nothing disturbs your tran- 
quiUity farther than to show you the value of it. 

" Beloved by your family — ^respected and esteemed every 
where — your official capacity acknowledged — your official 
exertions successful — what have you to desire ? But I have 
been so tossed about in the world, that, although I am as 
happy at home as my neighbors, I can hardly be said to have 
had a fair and decent share of real quiet. The time may 
come, however, when I too shall be tranquil, and when, freed 
from a host of importunate cares, that now keep me com- 
pany whether I will or not, I may look back upon the way 
I have travelled with a heart at ease, and forward with a 
Christian's hope. I suspect I am growing serious when I 
meant to be directly the reverse. Thus, indeed, it is with 
the gi'eat mass of our purposes. 



54 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

" I am rejoiced that Annapolis holds up its head. In 
itself the most beautiful, to me the most interesting spot 
on earth, I would fain believe that it is doomed to enjoy the 
honors of old age without its decrepitude. There is not a 
foot of ground in its neighborhood which my memory has 
not consecrated, and which does not produce, as fancy traces 
it, a thousand retrospections that go directly to the heart. 
It was the scene of our youthful days. What more can be 
said '^ I would have it to be also the scene of my declining 
years. 

" TeU Jonathan that I would write to him if I could — 
but that I have scarcely leisure for this scrawl. He knows 
my affections, and will take the 'will for the deed.' I offer 
him, through you, my fehcitations upon the stability and 
wholesome effects of the Farmers' Bank. Ask him why it 
is that I do not hear from him ? All days are not discount 
days, and a man may be cashier of the Bank of England, 
and yet have a moment to spare to those who love him. I 
beg you to remember me to the Governor, and to Dr. J., and 
to other friends." 

ME. PINKNEY TO MRS. NINIAN PINKNEY. 

"London, JmielAth, 1S09. 

" My Dear Madam : — If I had not found it impossible 
to answer your letter by the return of the Pacific, it would 
have been answered. Business occupied my time, and 
anxiety my heart, to the last moment. I would have 
cheated the last of these tyrants of an hour or two by con- 
versing with you ; but the first forbade it, and I had no 
choice but to submit. From this double despotism I am 
now comparatively free, and the use which I make of my 
liberty is to trespass on you with a few lines. 

I shall not condole with you on your loss, though I am 
able to conjecture how keenly it has been felt ; you have 



LIFE OF WILLIAM riNKNEY. 55 

yourself suggested one of the consolations which best support 
the good under the heaviest of all human calamities : We 
shall meet again in purity and joy the friends who are every 
day falling around us. There is nothing which more effec- 
tually cheers the soul in its dark mortal pilgrimage tlian 
this noble confidence ; life would, indeed, be a sad journey 
without it ; the power of death is, in tliis view, nothing ; it 
separates us for a season merely to lit us for a more exalted 
and holy communion. I have clung to this thought ever 
since I was capable of thinking, and I would not part with 
it for worlds ; it has assisted me in many a trial to bear up 
against the evil of the hour, and to shake off in some degree 
(for who can boast of having entirely escaped from) the in- 
fluence of those passions that betray and degrade us. If 
I may dare to say so, it gives a new value to immortality, 
while it furnishes powerful incentives to virtue. You can- 
not, I think, have yet met with " Morehead's Discourses." 
One of his sermons turns upon the loss of children ; and he 
sets forth, with that eloquence which comes warm from the 
heart, the softenings which this bitter affliction derives from 
rehgion. When you can get the sermon, read it ; in the 
mean time, the following short extract will please you. It is 
exquisitely beautiful ; and the best of our modern Keviews 
has quoted it as a soothing and original suggestion : 

" ' We are all well aware of the influence of the world. We 
know how strongly it engages our thoughts, and debases the 
springs of our actions : we all know how important it is to 
have the springs of our minds renewed, and the rust which 
gathers over them cleared away. One of the principal ad- 
vantages, perhaps, which arises from the possession of 
cliildren, is, that in their society the simplicity of our nature 
is constantly recalled to our view ; and that, when we return 
from the cares and thoughts of the world into our domestic 
circle, we behold beings whose happiness springs from no 
false estimates of worldly good, but from the benevolent 



56 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

instincts of nature. The same 7noral advantage is often 
det'ived in a greater degree from the memory of those children 
who have left us. Their simple characters dwell upon our 
minds with a deeper impression ; their least actions return 
to our thoughts with more force than if we had it still in 
our power to witness them ; and they return to us clothed 
in that saintly garh which helongs to the possessors of a 
higher existence. We feel that there is now a link connect- 
ing us with a purer and a better scene of beings ; that a 
part of ourselves has gone before us in the bosom of God ; 
and that the same happy creatures which here on earth 
showed us the simple sources from which happiness springs, 
now hover over us, and scatter from their wings the graces 
and beatitudes of eternity.' 

" Who can read this passage without feeling his heart in 
unison with it.^ It cannot be read without inspiring a 
pleasing melancholy, and lifting the mind beyond the low 
contamination of this probationary state, ' to scenes where 
love and bliss immortal reign.' " 



MR. PINKNEY TO HIS BROTHER NIOTAN. 

"London, £^ep<m6er 2Zd, 1809. 

" Dear N. : — I received, a few days ago, your letter of 
the 26th of June. I am obHged to you for the intelligence 
given in a part of it, and still more for the kindness and 
affection which pervade the whole. A better choice of 
Governor could not, I should think, have been made. It 
must have been very agreeable to you, and I congratulate 
you upon it accordingly. I have not yet received the letter 
Avhich you tell me I am to expect from the Governor and 
Council. I shall be happy to do all in my power to fulfil 
their wishes, whatever they may be. William is most for- 
tunately fixed, and I have the utmost confidence that he wiU 
do well. If he does otherwise his condemnation will be great 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 57 

indeed. The children who are with me have shot up at a 
prodigious rate, and require much care and expense, Charles, 
who is a remarkably promising boy, has finished his prepar- 
atory course, and is now at Eton. Edward will be placed, 
after Christmas, at the school which Charles has left. The 
rest will continue to have masters at home. 

" My anxiety to return does not diminish. On the con- 
trary, it grows upon me, and I find it necessary to wrestle 
with it. You know that I have as many and as strong in- 
ducements to be contented here as any American could 
have ; but England is not Maryland ; and foreign friendsj 
however great, or numerous, or kind, cannot interest us like 
those of our native land, — the companions of our early days, 
the witnesses and competitors of our first struggles in life, 
and the indulgent partakers of our sorrows and our joys ! I 
trust that I have as Httle disposition as any man to repine 
at my lot, and I know that I endeavored to form my mind 
to a devout and reverential submission to the will of God. 
Yet I cannot conceal from myself that every day adds some- 
thing to my cares and nothing to my happiness ; that I am 
growing old among strangers ; and that my heart, naturally 
warm and open, becomes cold by discipline, contracted by 
duty, and sluggish from want of exercise. These may be 
called imaginary ills ; but there is another, which all the 
world will admit to be substantial — I speak to you in confi- 
dence — my salary is found by experience to be far short of 
the actual necessities of my situation. It was fixed at its 
present rate many years ago, when the style of living and 
the prices of articles would not bear a comparison with those 
of the present time. I have no right to complain, however ; 
and, therefore, I write this for your own perusal merely." 



58 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 



THOMAS JEFFEKSON TO WILLIAM PINKNET. 

"MoNTiCELLO, August 6th, 1809. 

" Dear Sie. — The bearer hereof, Mr. Alexander McKae, 
and Major John Clarke, proposing to go to Great Britain on 
their private concerns, I take the liberty of presenting them 
to your notice and patronage. Mr. McEae, a lawyer of dis- 
tinction, has been a member of the council of state of Vir- 
ginia and Lieutenant-Governor, liighly esteemed for his 
talents and correctness of principle, moral and political. 
Major Clarke was long also in public employ as director of 
the armory of this State, recommended as such by his great 
mechanical ingenuity and personal worth. Any good offices 
you may be so kind as to render them wiU be deservedly 
bestowed ; and their knowledge of the present state of our 
affairs may enable them to add acceptably to your informa- 
tion. 

" I am happy in an occasion of expressing to you my 
great esteem for you personally, and the satisfaction with 
which I noted the correctness, both as to matter and man- 
ner, with which you discharged the public duties you were 
so kind as to undertake at my request. 

" I witnessed too with pleasure the esteem with which 
you inspired my successor, then more immediately engaged 
in correspondence with you. Accept the just tribute of 
mine also, and of my great respect and consideration." 



MR. PINKNEY TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

"London, April SOth, 1810. 

" Dear Sir : — It was only a few days ago that I had the 
honor to receive your letter of the 5tli of August last, by 
Mr. McKae. I need not say that I shall be happy to show 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 59 

that gentleman every attention, and to do him every service 
in my power. 

" I cannot express to you how sensibly I feel the kind- 
ness of the last paragraph of your letter. If any thing could 
give new strength to the affectionate sentiments which bind 
me to you, it would be the assm-ance it contains, that in 
your retirement you look back vdih approbation on my 
humble endeavors to be useful to om* country, and that you 
honor me with your esteem. I lay claim to no other merit 
than that of disinterested zeal in seconding your views for 
the public honor and prosperity ; views which I heartily 
approved, and which every day demonstrates the wisdom. 

" I sincerely hope that my conduct during the remainder 
of my mission (which, without utter ruin to my private 
afiairs, can scarcely be very long) will not deprive me of 
your good opinion. I am quite sure that it wiU not shake 
your confidence in the rectitude of my intentions. 

" When I return to the private situation in which you 
were so good as to distinguish me, it will be in my power to 
show as I wish the veneration in wliich I hold your character, 
and the impression which your friendly conduct towards me 
has made VL])on my heart." 

Amid the exciting and agitating discussions that were 
going on in England, and the often clouded sky of our polit- 
ical horizon, it is dehghtful to trace the workings of private 
friendship, and recall the sentiments of respect with which 
our Minister inspired those with whom he was brought in 
contact. The alienation of countries, so closely aUied to 
each other in all that can cement and bind them together, 
is exceedingly painful. The aggravating perseverance in an 
odious and oppressive policy (sanctioned by no principle of 
the great international law, on the part of successive admin- 
istrations of public affairs in England), which ultimately 
terminated in a disastrous war, is a subject of reflection not 



60 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

less painful in the retrospect. But there are evidences of a 
kindliness of feeling, a generosity and magnanimity, which 
set forth the personal character of those most intimately 
connected with such grave discussions in beautiful and 
striking contrast, and prove that while each was true to 
their national claims, they knew how to admire and ajDpre- 
ciate what was personally winning and attractive in the 
other. The following letters from Wilberforce, the pure- 
hearted and eloquent champion of humanity, and Lord Hol- 
land, the consummate statesman and refined gentleman, 
though in themselves but mere expressions of personal re- 
gard, will be read with interest. 



FEOM LORD HOLLAND TO MR. PINKNET. 

London, June \st, 1808. 

" Dear Sir : — From fear that you might have thought 
what I said to you about your boy a mere matter of form, I 
write again to you after I have talked it over with Lady 
Holland, to say that if we are to encounter the misfortune of 
a war with America, and upon leaving this country you 
should wish your son to pursue his education liere, Lady 
Holland and myself beg to assure you, that without the least 
inconvenience to us, we can take care of him during the holi- 
days ; and between them ascertain, that he is going on pro- 
perly, and give you all the information you would require 
upon the progress of his studies, state of his health, &c. I 
only entreat you to adoj)t this plan, if otherwise agreeable 
and convenient, without scruple, as I assure you we should 
not offer it if we did not feel pleasure in the prospect of its 
being accepted. 

"I see in the Morning Chronicle of yesterday the state- 
ment you gave me in a letter signed Veritas. Where it comes 
from I know not. I was preparing to send the statement to 
the papers, and it has saved me the trouble." 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 61 



FROM WILBEREORCE TO MR. PINKNEY. 

"March Uth, 1811. 

" My Dear Sir : — It has been, for above a week past, 
my intention to do myself tlip honor of calling on you, to 
take my chance of obtaining a conference with you ; but 
• having always been, and still being prevented, may I take the 
liberty of begging the favor of you to appoint a day, when 
between 11 and 1 (if you can spare me a few moments be- 
tween those hours), I may have the honor of a little conver- 
sation with you. Indeed, if you should stay in England 
longer than I fear you design, I would hope that you might 
indulge me with your company at dinner ; but I am anxious 
to secure a little intercourse with you. I cannot lay down 
my pen without exjpressing (and with no unmeaning words) 
my deep concern on the event of your quitting this country; 
fearing that it has at least a face of declining friendsliip be- 
tween our two countries, which it is one of the fondest desires 
of my heart, as it is recommended by the clearest judgment 
of my understanding, that they should be united in the bonds 
of close and indissoluble attachment." 

Mr. Pinkney retm-ned to the United States in the month 
of June, 1811. He was not suffered to continue long in re- 
tirement ; for in the September following he was elected a 
member of the Senate of Maryland. This position he oc- 
cupied but a few months, for in December he was appointed, 
by President Madison, Attorney-General of the United 
States. This was an office eminently congenial to his tastes 
and feelings. It gave a splendid scope to the pecuKar powers 
of his mind, and opened up a field of usefulness and of fame 
most tempting to behold, and profitable to cultivate and till. 
There was something too in the manner in which it was con- 
ferred, that was exceedingly gratifying. He had just returned 
from England. His whole pubHc career, while at the court 



02 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

of St. James, had passed under the immediate review of Mr. 
Madison ; and it was a noble tribute to his worth, to be se- 
lected almost immediately on his return to fiU so important 
and dignified a position, in a relationship so near to that 
wise and great statesman. The manner in which his new 
duties were discharged is best illustrated by the might and 
majesty of his arguments before the Supreme Court, and the 
cogency and convincing power of his written legal opinions. 
The passage of a law, which made it necessary for the Attor- 
ney-General to reside at the seat of government, com- 
pelled him to resign the post within the short period of two 
years. His practice was too lucrative to admit of so great a 
sacrifice, and Madison was left to mourn his loss to the public 
councils of the nation. This necessity was just cause for re- 
gret. Mr. Pinkney's great industry, methodical mode of 
doing business, and high professional ambition, would have 
been productive of most admirable results to the public ser- 
vice ; while his profound acquaintance with the constitution 
and deep legal learning and skill in diplomacy, would have 
made him an invaluable aid to the administration, and an 
astute defender of the rights of the government. 

During the war he was as ready to serve the country in 
the field, as he had been to uphold her dignity and maintain 
her honor in discussion with English diplomatists. He as- 
sumed the command of a company, and in the disastrous en- 
gagement at Bladensburg (where in the judgment of im- 
partial history our arms will be found to have deserved a 
better fate), he was severely wounded. The effects of that 
wound he carried with him to the grave. 

He wielded his pen with signal success in the defence of 
the war, and in a pamphlet over the signature of Publius, 
addressed to the people of Maryland, he thus expressed him- 
self. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. G3 



EXTBACTS FROM A PAMPHLET WRITTEN BY MR. PINKNEY, UN- 
DER THE SIGNATURE OF " PUBLIUS." 

" But it is impossible that, in weighing the merits of a 
candidate for a seat in the General Assembly, yoii should be 
occupied by considerations which are merely local. You are 
bound to give to your inquiries a wider range. You neither 
can, nor ought, to shut your eyes to the urgent concerns of 
the whole empire, embarked as it is in a conflict with the 
determined foe of every nation upon earth sufficiently pros- 
perous to be envied. Maryland is at all times an interesting 
and conspicuous member of the Union ; but her relative po- 
sition is infinitely more important now than in ordinary 
seasons. The war is in her waters, and it is waged there 
with a wantonness of brutality, which will not suffer the 
energies of her gallant population to slumber, or the watch- 
fulness of her appointed guardians to be intermitted. The 
rights for which the nation is in arms are of high import to 
her as a commercial section of the continent. They cannot 
be surrendered or compromised without affecting every vein 
and arteiy of her system ; and if the towering honor of uni- 
versal America should be made to bow before the sword, or 
should be betrayed by an inglorious peace, where will the 
blow be felt with a sensibility more exquisite than here in 
Maryland I 

" It is perfectly true that our State government has not 
the prerogative of peace and war ; but it is just as true, that 
it can do much to invigorate or enfeeble the national arm for 
attack or for defence ; that it may conspire with the legisla- 
tures of other States to blast the best hopes of peace, })y em- 
barrassing or resisting the efforts by which alone a durable 
peace can be achieved ; as it may forward pacific negotiation 
by contributing to teach the enemy that we who, when our 



64 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

means were small, and our numbers few, rose as one man, 
and maintained ourselves victorious against the mere theories 
of England, with all the terrors of English power before us, 
are not noiu prej^ared to crouch to less than the same power, 
however insolently displayed, and to receive from it in per- 
petuity an infamous yoke of pernicious principles, which had 
already galled us until we could bear it no longer. ^ 

"That the war -with England is irreproachably just, no 
man can doubt who exercises his understanding upon the 
question. It is known to the whole world, that when it was 
declared, the British Government had not retracted or quali- 
fied any one of those maritime claims which threatened the 
ruin of American commerce, and disparaged American sover- 
eignty. Every constructive blockade, by which our ordinary 
communication with European or other marts had been in- 
tercepted, was either perversely maintained, or made to give 
place only to a wider and more comprehensive impediment. 
The right of impressment, in its most odious form, continued 
to be vindicated in argument and enforced in practice. The 
rule of the war of 1756, against which the voice of all Ame- 
rica was lifted up in 1805, was still preserved, and had only 
become inactive because the colonies of France and her allies 
had fallen before the naval power of England. The Orders 
in Council of 1807 and 1809, which in their motive, principle, 
and operation, were utterly incompatible with our existence 
as a commercial people, which retaliated with tremendous 
effect upon a friend the impotent irregularities of an enemy; 
which established upon the seas a despotic dominion, by 
which power and right were confounded, and a system of 
monopoly and plunder raised, with a daring contempt of 
decency, upon the wreck of neutral prosperity, and public 
law ; which even attempted to exact a tribute, under the 
name of an impost, from the merchants of this independent 
land, for permission to become the slaves and instruments of 
that abominable system ; had been adhered to (notwith- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 65 

standing the acknowledged repeal of the Berlin and Milan 
decrees in regard to the United States) with an alarming a\)- 
pearance of a fixed and permanent attachment to those very 
qualities which fitted them for the work of oppression, and 
filled us with disuiay. Satisfaction, and even explanation, 
had been either steadily denied, or contemptuously evaded. 
Our complaints had been reiterated till we ourselves blushed 
to hear them, and till the insolence with which they were 
received recalled U3 to some sense of dignity. History does 
not furnish an example of such patience under such an ac- 
cumulation of injuries and insults. 

" The Orders in Council were indeed provisionally revok- 
ed a few days after the declaration of war ; in such a man- 
ner, however, as to assert their lawfulness, and to make 
provision for their revival, whenever the British Government 
should think fit to say that they ought to be revived. The 
distresses of the manufacturing and other classes of British 
subjects had, at last, extorted from a bigoted and reluctant 
cabinet what had been obstinately refused to the demands of 
justice. But the lingering repeal, inadequate and ungracious 
as it was, came too late. The Rubicon had been passed. 

" ' Nothing is more to be esteemed than jjeace ' (I quote 
the wisdom of Poly bins), ' when it leaves us in possession of 
our honor and rights ; but when it is joined with loss of free- 
dom, or with infamy, nothing can be more detestable and 
fatal.' I speak with just confidence, when I say, that no 
federalist can be found who desires with more sincerity the 
return of peace than the repubUcan government by which 
the war was declared. But it desires such a peace as the 
companion and instructor of Scipio has praised — a peace 
consistent with our rights and honor, and not the deadly 
tranquillity which may be purchased by disgrace, or taken in 
barter for the dearest and most essential claims of our trade 
and sovereignty. I appeal to you boldly : Are you prepared 
to purchase a mere cessation of anus by unqualified submis- 
5 



66 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 

sion to tlie pretensions of England ? Are you prepared to 
sanction them by treaty and entail them upon your posteri- 
ty, with the inglorious and timid hope of escaping the wrath 
of those whom your fathers discomfited and vanquished ? 
Are you prepared, for the sake of a present profit, which the 
circumstances of Europe must render paltry and precarious, 
to cripple the strong wing of American commerce for years to 
come, to take from our flag its national eflect and character, 
and to subject our vessels on the high seas, and the brave men 
who navigate them, to the municipal jurisdiction of Great 
Britain ? I know very well that there are some amongst us (I 
hope they are few) who are prepared for all this, and more ; who 
pule over every scratch occasioned by the war as if it were an 
overwhelming calamity, and are only sorry that it is not 
worse ; who would skulk out of a contest for the best interests 
of their countiy to save a shilling or gain a cent ; who, having 
inherited the wealth of their ancestors without their spirit, 
would receive laws from London with as much facility as 
woollens from Yorkshire, or hardware from Sheffield. But I 
write to the great body of the people, who are sound and 
virtuous, and worthy of the legacy which the heroes of the 
Revolution have bequeathed them. For them, I undertake to 
answer, that the only peace which they can be made to en- 
dure, is that which may twine itself round the honor of the 
people, and with its healthy and abundant foliage give shade 
and shelter to the prosperity of the empire. 

" I passed rapidly in a former number over the justifying 
causes of the war. But you must permit me in this place, 
and for a single instant, to recur to one of them, as introduc- 
tory to a consideration which you will do well to lay to your 
hearts when you are assembled at the polls. The founda- 
tion upon which the claim of Great Britain reposes, to send 
a pressgang on board of our ships upon the ocean, as if 
they were the docks or the alehouses of Liverpool, is simply 
the right of the crown, as it is recognized by her laws, to the 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 67 

services of every subject in time of AVcar. The doctrine 
amounts to this, that a man bom within the British do- 
minions is, in a qualified sense, the property of the govern- 
ment, in virtue of an artificial and slavisli notion of perpet- 
ual allegiance ; that, though he may have been forced by 
poverty or persecution to emigrate, and has become the cit- 
izen or subject of another state, his allegiance cleaves to him . 
for life ; that no time, or distance, or sanctuary, or new 
obligations can save him from its mysterious and inextinguish- 
able power ; and that, of course, he may be seized wherever 
and whenever he can be found. 

" But the abominable doctrine is associated with another 
which says, that although no state can be suffered to hold 
British seamen in its service by naturalization or otherwise, 
Great Britain may encourage the seamen of other states to 
enter into her service, and may keep them there till she wants 
them no longer ! And, that nothing may be wanting to the 
consistency of the British doctrine on this head, it goes on to 
maintain that if a foreign seaman should happen to marry 
and settle (as it is phrased) in an English port, he may be 
impressed as an English sailor, and may be retained as such 
against liis own remonstrance, seconded by that of his country. 

" In the execution of the first of those rules, which the 
associated rules so pointedly discountenance, our vessels were 
stopped on their laAvfui voyages, and their mariners taken 
away by violence upon the bare allegation, whether true or 
false, that they were British subjects. Many of these per- 
sons were native Americans, many of them were neutral 
Europeans over whom Great Britain had no lawful control, 
and many more were fairly entitled to be considered as Amer- 
ican seamen, according to the law which Great Britain had 
(as I have already stated) laid down and enforced against us 
and the rest of the world. It was impossible that, with the 
best disposition, such a rule should be made to act only on 
the professed objects of it. But it was often exercised with 



68 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

■wanton tyranny by proud and upstart surrogates in naval 
uniform ; and the abuses grew to be enormous and intolera- 
ble. The approach of a British cruiser, in the bosom of 
peace, struck a terror in our seamen which it cannot now in- 
spire, and almost every vessel returning from a foreign voy- 
age, brought affliction to an American family, by reporting 
the impressment of a husband, a brother, or a son. The 
government of the United States, by whomsoever adminis- 
tered, has invariably protested against this monstrous prac- 
tice, as cruel to the gallant men whom it oppressed, as it 
was injurious to the navigation, the commerce, and the sov- 
ereignty of the Union. Under the administration of Wash- 
ington, of Adams, of Jefferson, of Madison, it was reproba- 
ted and resisted as a grievance which could not be borne ; 
and Mr. King, who was instructed upon it, supposed at one 
time that the British Government were ready to abandon it, 
by a convention which he had arranged -with Lord St. Vin- 
cent, but which finally miscarried. You have witnessed the 
generous anxiety of the late and present chief magistrates to 
put an end to a usage so pestilent and debasing. You have 
seen them propose to a succession of English ministers, as 
inducements to its rehnquishment, expedients and equiva- 
lents of infinitely greater value to England than the usage, 
whilst they were innocent in themselves and respectful to us. 
You have seen these temperate overtures haughtily repelled, 
until the other noxious pretensions of Great Britain, grown 
in the interim to a gigantic size, ranged themselves by the 
side of this, and left no alternative but war or infamy. We 
are at war accordingly, and the single question is, whether 
you will fly like cowards from the sacred ground wliich the 
government has been compelled to take, or whether you will 
prove by your actions that you are descended from the loins 
of men who reared the edifice of American liberty, in the 
midst of such a storm as you have never felt. 

" As the war was forced upon us by a long series of unex- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 69 

mplecl aggressions, it would be absolute madness to doubt 
that peace will receive a cordial welcome, if she returns 
without ignominy in her train, and with security in her hand. 
The destinies of America are commercial, and her true policy 
is peace ; but the substance of peace had, long before we 
were roused to a tardy resistance, been denied to us by the 
ministry of England ; and the shadoiu which had been left 
to mock our hopes and to delude our imaginations, resembled 
too much the frowning spectre of war to deceive any body. 
Every sea had witnessed, and continued to witness, the sys- 
tematic persecution of our trade and the unrelenting oppres- 
sion of our peojjle. The ocean had ceased to be tlie safe 
highway of the neutral world ; and our citizens traversed it 
with all the fears of a benighted traveller, who trembles 
along a road beset with banditti, or infested by the beasts of 
the forest. The government, thus urged and goaded, drew 
the sword with a \dsible reluctance ; and, true to the pacific 
policy which kept it so long in the scabbard, it will sheathe 
it again when Great Britain shall consult her own interest, 
by consenting to forbear in future the wrongs of the past. 

" The disposition of the government upon that point has 
been decidedly pronounced by facts which need no commen- 
tary. From the moment when war was declared, peace has 
been sought by it Avith a steady and unwearied assiduity, at 
the same time that every practicable preparation has been 
made, and every nerve exerted to prosecute the war with 
vigor, if the enemy should persist in his injustice. The law 
respecting seamen, the Russian mission, tlie instructions sent 
to our Charge d'affaires in London, the prompt and exj^licit 
disavowal of every unreasonable pretension falsely ascribed 
to us, and the solemn declaration of the government in the 
face of the world, that it wishes for nothing more than a fair 
and honorable accommodation, Avould be conclusive proofs 
of this, if any proofs were necessary. But it docs not require 
to be proved, because it is self-evident. What interest, in 



YO LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

the name of common sense, can the government have (dis- 
tinctly from that of the whole nation) in a war with Great 
Britain ? It is obvious to the meanest capacity that such a 
war must be accompanied by privations, of which no govern- 
ment would hazard the consequences, but upon the sugges- 
tions of an heroic patriotism. The President and his support- 
ers have never been ignorant that those who suffer by a war, 
however unavoidable, are apt rather to murmur against the 
government than against the enemy, and that while it presses 
upon us we sometimes forget the comjDulsion under which it 
was commenced, and regret that it was not avoided with a 
provident foresight of its evils. 

" It will, therefore, be no easy matter to persuade you 
that this war was courted by an administration who depend 
upon the people for their power, and are proud of that de- 
pendence ; or that it will be carried on with a childish ob- 
stinacy when it can be terminated with honor and with safety. 
You have, on the contrary, a thousand j)ledges that the gov- 
ernment was averse to war, and wiU give you peace the in- 
stant peace is in its power. You know, moreover, that the 
enemy will not grant it as a boon, and that it must be 
wrung from his necessities. It comes to this, then : whom 
will you select as your champions to extort it from him.^ upon 
whom will you cast the charge of achieving it against him 
in the Ksts ? " 

In 1815 he was elected a Kepresentative in Congress 
from the city of Baltimore. 

In 1816 he was appointed by President Monroe, Minis- 
ter Plenipotentiary to the court of Russia and special minis- 
ter to that of Naples. This was another gratifying tribute 
of respect and confidence from one who best knew his quali- 
fications as a statesman. Of his conduct in those missions 
I shaU have occasion to speak hereafter. I have it in my 
power to lay before the public a letter written to Robert 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY 71 

Goodloe Harper. It is a gem of its kind, a living, breathing 
picture, full of beauty and exquisite taste. It exhibits a 
power of gra2)hic composition not easily paralleled. I am 
sure it will be read with interest. His sketch of the reign- 
ing empress is inimitable ; and his fine appreciation of all 
that is truly beautiful and fascinating in the charm of woman 
shines out in each and every paragraph — and what is most 
remarkable, the hues of the portraiture are so shaded and 
blended, that while they seem to catch their coloring from 
the skies, they are not unreal. It goes as near extravagance 
as it could, to be just and faithful ; and never oversteps the 
bounds of probability and of fact, as the pen of history has 
since testified. There is nothing that I remember so beau- 
tiful in the English language, except it be Wordsworth's 
touching and exquisite picture of his wife. Mr. Pinkney was 
held in peculiar estimation by the reigning Emperor Alexan- 
der, who opened a new page in the history of Russia, and re- 
deemed his court from the intrigues and excesses that had 
weU-nigh disgraced it in the eye of the world, during some 
of the preceding reigns. 



MR. PINKNEY TO ROB. GOODLOE HARPER. 

"St. Petersburg, August lOth, 1817. 

" Dear Sir: — Major General the Baron de Tevyll, who 
is about to proceed to the United States as the successor of 
Mr, Daschkoft, wishes me to make him acquainted with 
some of my friends in Baltimore ; and you will, I hope, take 
it in good part that I introduce to you the worthy minister 
of such a monarch as Alexander. 

" The Baron has seen a good deal of service as a soldier, 
and has won an honorable reputation. By birth a Dutch- 
man, he was originally in some corps in the pay of England, 
and thence passed into the staff and line of Russia. He 
has, however, been more employed as a diplomatist, and has 



72 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

recently returned from a mission to Rome in wliich he con- 
ducted himself satisfactorily and ably. In this department 
he is said to be very skilful. But what I think of yet greater 
consequence is, that he is an excellent man and an accom- 
plished gentleman. I speak in part from my own observa- 
tion (for I have seen him often here), and partly from what 
I learn from others who have long known him. He carries 
with him a great regard for our countiy, in unison with the 
sentiments of the Emperor ; and this feeling, combined with 
his characteristic good sense and discretion, will, I am sure, 
make him an acceptable minister, not only to our govern- 
ment but to our people. 

" As I know the interest which you take in whatever 
concerns this government, you will not, I think, be displeased 
if, now that I have begun to write, I give you a very brief 
sketch (not of its policy — for with that you are well ac- 
quainted — but) of the great personages who are at the head 
of it, I mean the principal members of the Imperial family, 
of whom little is known in America. 

" The Em2Jcror is a remarkably handsome man, and of 
an admirable address. Every body justly ascribes to him the 
merit of good intentions, and, with equal justice, the addi- 
tional merit of knowing how to use the best means for the ful- 
filment of those intentions. He is one of the few men in the 
worid who, having been seen at a distance in great enterprises 
and achievements, gain by being approached and closely ex- 
amined. I am mistaken in him if he is not a man of great 
abilities. He appears to me to have a clear, vigorous and 
cultivated mind — to be steady and sagacious in the pursuit 
of his purposes — to be well read in men as well as books — 
to be prompt and dexterous in the management of affairs — to 
have the wholesome habit of thinking for himself — to be of 
a generous, though perhaps somewhat hasty temper — and, in 
a word, to be signally fitted for his high vocation. 

" The Empress 3Iother is still a most charming woman, 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 73 

and when young must have been extremely handsome ; she 
may be said to do the honors of this splendid court, and it 
is right that she should. Her manners are infinitely pleasing 
at the same time that they are lofty ; and she is a perfect 
mistress of the arts of conversation. She is, moreover, ex- 
emjjlary in all the relations of life, and is beloved for her 
goodness by all classes. 

" Of the reigning Empress it is impossible to speak in 
adequate terms of praise. It is necessary to see her, to be 
able to comprehend how wonderfully interesting she is. It 
is no exaggeration to say that, with a slight abatement for 
the effects of time and severe affliction (produced by the loss 
of her children), she combines every charm that contributes 
to female loveliness, with all the qualities that peculiarly be- 
come her exalted station. Her figure, although thin, is ex- 
quisitely fine. Her countenance is a subduing picture of 
feeling and intelligence. Her voice is of that soft and happy 
tone that goes directly to the heart and awakens every senti- 
ment which a virtuous woman can be ambitious to excite. 
Her manner cannot be described or imagined. It is so 
graceful, so unaftectedly gentle, so winning and yet so digni- 
fied, that (I had almost said) an angel might copy it and im- 
prove his own. Her conversation is suited to this noble ex- 
terior. Adapted with a nice discrimination to those to whom 
it is addressed, unostentatious and easy, sensible and kind, 
it captivates invariably the wise and good, and (what is yet 
more difiicult) satisfies the frivolous without the slightest ap- 
proaches to frivolity. If universal report is to be credited, 
there is no virtue for which this incomparable woman is not 
distinguished ; and I have reason to be confident, from all 
tliat I have observed and heard, that her understanding 
(naturally of the highest order) has been embellished and 
improved to an uncommon degree by judicious and regular 
and various study. It is not surprising, therefore, that she is 
alike adored by the inhabitant of the palace and the cottage, 



74 i LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

and that every Eussian looks up to lier as to a superior being. 
She is indeed a superior being ; and would be adored although 
she were not surrounded by Imperial pomp and power. It 
is time, however, to have done with these sketches, and to 
return to the subject of this letter, into which I did not in- 
tend, when I sat down to write, to introduce any other 
subject. 

" The Baron sets out from St. Petersburgh in a few days ; 
but probably will not arrive in the United States until next 
winter, as he goes by the route of Vienna, Munich, Holland, 
and England." 

Mr. Pinkney returned to the United States in 1818 at 
his own request, and it is remarkable, that while he never 
solicited directly or indirectly a foreign appointment, he was 
never recalled but upon his own expressed wish long resisted 
and reluctantly entertained. 

He lost no time in indolent inactivity, but immediately 
resumed the practice of the law ; and soon proved that he 
had lost nothing during his absence from the forum. Mary- 
land was too proud of his feme to allow him to continue in 
private practice at the bar. She had honored him with al- 
most every post of distinction in her gift, and she now gave 
him the finishing proof of her attachment and confidence by 
electing him to the Senate of the United States. On the 
4th January, 1820, he took his seat. The country was in 
the deepest state of anxiety. A question of momentous in- 
terest was then under deliberation. The first men of the 
land were participators in the discussion. On the 15th 
February he delivered his immortal speech on the Missouri 
Compromise. A member of the committee of conference 
on the part of the Senate, he proposed the report which was 
subsequently adopted by that committee. Little more than 
one month a member of that body, he delivered a speecli that 
electrified the country, was placed upon the committee that 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 75 

settled the difficulty and proposed the report that was made. 
Such pre-eminence in so short a time is not often paralleled 
in the history of legislation. 

During the brief period of his Senatorial career he was 
incessantly occupied in the conflicts of the forum ; discussing 
questions of the greatest magnitude with competitors from 
all quarters of the country, who were rarely if ever equalled, 
and never excelled in any other period of the history of the 
American Bar. He was preparing a great speech on the 
constitution at the time he died ; and from the zest with 
which he entered on its preparation and the interest he felt, 
it may be affirmed, that, had he Kved, he would have doubled 
his claim to the lasting gratitude of his countrymen and 
recalled the early days of the Republic when constitutional 
discussions were rich in wisdom and pre-eminently patriotic in 
purpose. But it pleased Divine Providence to forbid that 
the topmost stone should be placed by his owti hands upon 
the vast pyramid of his fame. Death palsied the tongue, 
ere its trumpet tones were heard in that discussion ; and 
none were privileged to share in the noble thoughts that 
were flitting through his brain and panting for utterance. 

I now draw near the close of his life. It vn\l be seen 
that from the early age of 24 to the day of his death, he 
was constantly occupied in the public service at home or 
abroad, a semce he neither souglit nor shunned ; that he 
contrived all the while to pursue with unabated zeal liis pro- 
fessional studies, and retained a practice at the bar without a 
parallel in the history of the past or the present. The few 
last years of his life were marked with exertions well-nigh 
incredible, and rewarded with an income that it would be 
deemed exaggeration to name. His intellectual labors ex- 
ceeded his physical strength. In the very jjride of his power, 
in the fifty-eighth year of his age, with a robust constitution, 
uj)on which time seemed scarcely to have left its impress, 
" his eye not dimmed nor his natural force abated," he feU 



76 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

before the stroke of the destroyer. He had exerted himself 
in the discussion of a great cause before the court only a 
few days before. On the night of the I7th February, 1822, 
he sat up very late, amusing himself with the perusal of the 
Pirates ; and poured forth into the ear of private friendship 
his beautiful strictures upon the characters introduced. His 
mind was powerfully excited. I remember to have heard a 
gentleman, who sat with him for a short time during that 
eventful evening, say that he playfully exhibited the most 
astonishing feat of a powerful and retentive memory he had 
ever witnessed. That night he was struck down by disease. 
He lingered on untd the night of the 25th, in severe bodily 
suffering, wandering at times and then again in the full pos- 
session of his powers, when he breathed liis last. His phy- 
sician. Dr. Theophilus Parsons, thought him at first quite 
out of danger, and so wrote to his afflicted lady. But he 
was mistaken in his opinion, as the event sadly proved. His 
illness, so sudden and unexpected, produced a profound sen- 
sation in the country. His fellow-citizens, who had so re- 
cently witnessed his wondrous eloquence and still more won- 
derful legal logic, and were high in expectancy, as he was 
just beginning his preparation for his argument with Taze- 
well of Virginia, were illy prepared to follow in the funeral 
train that bore him to his resting-place, near the banks of 
the beautiful Potomac. He -disappeared with starthng sud- 
denness from the sphere of glory he had so long filled ; and 
grave Senators and learned judges paid a befitting tribute to 
his memory. 

There was no gradual breaking down of his giant intel- 
lect, no progressive, slowly developed decay in his splendid 
faculties. He fell in his might before the tribunal he de- 
lighted to address and on the arena he most loved to tread. 
He feU where the patriot and the hero would ever desire to 
fall, with his eyes on the floating stars and his armor on. 
Conscious that he would not survive the shock, he prepared 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PIXKNEY. 77 

to meet the summons and gently fell asleep. There was a 
grandeur in the close of his brilliant career. He could never 
brook the idea of rusting out. He preferred the higher des- 
tiny of the candle that consumes itself in burning. He 
toiled to the last and spurned the idea of intermitted exer- 
tion. His body now rests in the same grave-yard where lie 
so many of his illustrious compeers. A simple stone monu- 
ment indicates the spot. Besting my hand upon it, with my 
eye on the few letters inscribed thereon, I then and there 
realized the emptiness of earth, and asked myself the ques- 
tion, what is life with all of earthly renown it has to give, 
but a vapor that soon passeth away ? There is a sweet and 
touching simplicity in this the chosen sepulchre of our distin- 
guished countrymen. There is a calm, quiet beauty about 
it, that speaks directly to the heart. The green grass has 
grown up around it, and the birds sing in the leafy boughs 
that overshade it. 

Crowds throng the capitol and gaze with delight upon 
the lofty dome and ornamented grounds. They hang with 
pride and pleasure on the tongue of eloquence which still 
finds within its walls an echo. But its burial-ground is to 
me a still more attractive object. I love to go and stand 
amid the monuments of our past greatness ; and in the sad 
and pensive solitudes that are scarce broken by a sound, I 
love to muse and meditate on the memories of men long 
since dead, as fresh and fragrant as the day they died. There 
is the school of patriotism — there, the nursery of thoughts, 
great and pm'C and noble. 

I come now to discuss the intellectual and moral charac- 
ter of Mr. Pinkney ; and I am free to confess that I have 
chosen a task most difficult to execute. I am impelled to 
the undertaking by natural affection, and the conviction that 
the exhibition of such a character, in all the hues of its 
blended beauty and strength, would be an acceptable offer- 
ing to the young men of the profession, and serve to stim- 



78 LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

ulate and cheer them on in their earnest endeavor to emulate 
and if possible excel him of whom I write. 

Mr. Pinkney's character (those peculiar and striking 
moral and intellectual elements, which were its very warp 
and woof) has been pronounced, by Story, a study worthy of 
the young men of the land ; one of the grandest themes the 
tongue of eloquence can touch or the mind of genius ana- 
lyze. And while I feel, and, feeling, deplore my inability to 
do any thing like justice to the theme, I hope that the end 
will more than justify the effort. The portrait, which I 
shall endeavor to draw, is for the most part intellectual, a 
daguerreotype of the soul. His life, as has been already 
proved, was not without incident. A large portion of it was 
spent in the most stirring events of the most eventful period 
of modern history. But alas ! many of those incidents, which 
constitute so important a portion of the attractiveness and 
usefulness of biography, have been unhappily lost in the ever 
shifting tide of time, or else only survive in a dim oral tra- 
dition. His habits and mode of private life are to be seen, 
when seen at all, in mere floating report, good as far as it 
goes, but necessarily defective in minute and copious detail. 
For many of the incidents which ordinarily make up history 
and biography I possess no very high regard, because they 
do not serve to illustrate the subject. There are a thousand 
facts, the recital of which may amuse the superficial and 
unreflecting ; but which, as they do not set forth in stronger 
light the philosophy and moral of the subject, overload the 
memory and are nothing worth. There are other incidents, 
however, of the very last importance. Every thing, for ex- 
ample, connected with the personal history of a man on 
whom the eyes of an admiring world are fixed, is of interest. 
All are eager to know his inner life — how he inured his soul 
to the stern discipline of study, and sacrificed ease and 
pleasure to patient, secluded labor — what were his habits of 
reflection and the pastimes to which he resorted for amuse- 



LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNEY. 79 

ment — who were the favorite authors that cheered his hours 
of solitude, and what the peculiar tastes that adorned his 
private walk among men. There is a sort of mystery in the 
inner life of the great, which all are eager to explore. The 
biographer, who can, out of his abundant materials, gratify 
this natural and yearning desire, possesses a powerful hold 
upon the sympathies of his readers and exercises a most po- 
tent influence for good. It is to be regretted, that so many of 
the touching and beautiful incidents, which characterized the 
life and illustrated the individuality of William Pinkney, 
are lost beyond the hope of recovery. It is to be deeply re- 
gretted, that his observations on men and things, made in 
the exciting scenes of his foreign service, were not registered 
to be preserved and handed down to the ages following ; for 
he was a close and discriminating observer of both men and 
things. Often was his intercourse with his more confidential 
and intimate friends seasoned with minute and graphic criti- 
cisms of what passed under his notice. Some of the most 
brilliant specimens of his rare eloquence and profound thought 
were poured forth in those unreserved critiques. He wrote 
much, and published a good deal while in England, which is 
now lost. A number of documents were left in charge of 
my father, containing powerful discussions on a vast variety 
of the leading topics of the day, which were returned to 
him ; all of which have perished. 

It has been often the topic of remark and a matter of 
surprise, that a mind so active and prolific, exercised in con- 
stant contact with so much to thrill and excite it, should 
have left so little written behind. But the wonder is solved 
by the fact, that there was no effort made to preserve and 
hand it down. Could the observations that fell from his lips 
in torrents of the richest eloquence extending to an almost 
infinite variety of topics be now recalled, they would supply 
a sad chasm in his eventful life and constitute one of the 
most attractive pages of biography. For it is in the unre- 



80 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

served communion of heart with heart, that the character 
shines out and the man is most fully developed. But alas ! 
there was no Boswell equally competent and eager to retain 
those splendid passages of a life that nowhere shone so re- 
splendently as in the endearments of a friendship he fully 
trusted. It was this constant contact and faithful transcript, 
wliich enabled the writer of the life of Johnson to give to the 
world the most beautiful and accurate idea of what a biogra- 
phy should be, and which lent the most bewitching attrac- 
tion to its pages. 

I possess no such advantages. The time was when like 
diligence would have been rewarded by like results. But 
that time has passed. And in the dearth of this pleasing 
and instructive material, I must do the best I can, and let 
the moral and intellectual devlopment make up as best it 
may for the sad deficiency. 

It is as an orator, lawyer, statesman and man, that I 
propose to consider him. In the analysis, while I am free 
to confess I write under the influence of long cherished and 
ardent admiration, and lay no claim to exemption from the 
ordinary infirmities of our nature, I hope I shall not be found 
to sacrifice the great principles of truth and justice to my 
inordinate attachment to the memory of the dead. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 81 



WILLIAM PINKNEY AN OEATOR. 

William Pinkney was an orator. But what is oratory, 
and who is worthy of this august title ? This is a most in- 
teresting inquiry, interesting in itself and more so still in 
the light it casts upon the illustrious subject of this me- 
moir. If we take Cicero's definition, who most admirably 
illustrated the thing he defined, " composite, ornate, copiose 
eloqui " — or the still more comprehensive " quam ob rem, si 
quis universam et proj)riam oratoris vim definire complecti- 
que vult, is orator erit, mea sententia, hoc tam gravi dignus 
nomine, qui, quascumque res inciderit, quas sit dictiono, ex- 
pHcanda, prudenter, et composite, et ornate et memoriter 
dicat, cum quadam etiam actionis dignitate." I repeat, if 
we take Cicero's definition, there are few among the living 
or the dead, who can be found equally entitled to the term. 
Not to dwell upon his physical advantages, his fine com- 
manding person, his voice of singular sweetness, variety, com- 
pass and flexibility of tone, and his impressive and emphatic 
action ; he possessed a most vigorous and brilliant imagina- 
tion, and a depth of keen, discriminating analysis in union 
with the most lively and acute sensibilities. His command 
of language was marvellous in the extreme. For beauty, 
force and sj^lendor of diction, he was unrivalled. It flowed 
forth in a continuous stream of surprising accuracy and rich- 
ness ; no word misajiplied, no word misapprehended. True it 
is, he had some few natural defects of manner and some few 
artificial. But still with all, and despite of all, he was an 
orator of the very first class and among the very foremost of 
that class. If by oratory we mean the power to mould and 



82 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

melt the heart at pleasure, captivate and thrill the under- 
standing and sway the judgment — if by oratory we mean 
not only the magic tone, and emphatic look, and commanding 
gesture, but the capacity to express in words best suited to 
the theme the vivid and grand conceptions of the brain, and 
the imagination to combine and weave them together, and 
then the power to breathe into them life and energy — if all 
this be meant by oratory, then William Pinkney was an 
orator. 

There are different kinds of oratory as there are different 
degrees in its perfection. There is the soft and persuasive, 
which falls on the heart like dew and lingers on the enchanted 
ear like dulcet notes of music ; and there is the impetuous 
and overpowering, which bears down all before it, like the 
onward rush of the foamiog cataract. Mr. Pinkney's oratory 
was impetuous and overpowering. He could touch the ten- 
der chords with the hand of a master, and call forth, when 
he willed, the softest tones to melt and subdue the listener ; 
but most commonly he spoke to command and bear down, 
and such was the might and majesty of his eloquence that it 
took captive every hearer at its will. It was masterful and 
victorious. The elements of power were blended in it so ex- 
quisitely, that you could scarce discover where the one began 
or the other ended. Matter and manner alike conspired to 
make him an orator. He was as deep as he was brilliant. 
His rhetoric was thus convincing and his oratory thus mas- 
terful, because they were the lustre and the solidity of the 
diamond combined. Full of th3 most magnificent illustra- 
tions, the birth of an imagination naturally strong, and 
cultivated with the most studious care and exquisite taste, 
and enriched with the latest stores of an ever accumulating 
learning ; he threw all over the dry discussions of the law 
a bewitching fascination, and set forth its august principles 
with a fulness and a power seldom evoked. 

The testimony which is borne to the marvellous impres- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 83 

siveness of Mr. Piukney's spealdng upon any subject on any 
forum, at the bar or in the Senate chamber, or before the 
populace, cannot be mistaken. It comes up from too many 
sources to falsify itself Report speaks of verdicts forced 
from juries by his eloquent tongue ; and learned judges, who 
were compelled to bring around them, and summon to their 
aid, all the sterner attributes of their office in their endeavor 
to dissipate the spell of the charmer ; not once, but again 
and again. The writer of this memoir has often heard the 
late John Stephen (one of the judges of the old court of 
Appeals, one of the purest and most upright of judges, an 
ornament of the bench where he dispensed law and justice, 
not more respected for his ripe learning than his rare modesty, 
nice sense of judicial propriety and love of genuine forensic 
eloquence) say, that he had heard Mr. Piukney indulge in 
such strains of lofty eloquence in so many pleadings before 
the court, that he wholly despaired of ever hearing any thing 
like it again ; and that too, when returning from the capitol 
of the country and the presence of the American Senate 
chamber in the day of its proudest fame. Judge Story, an- 
other of the bright lights of American jurisprudence (I 
might say one of the brightest), tells us in his exquisite sketch, 
that " no one could listen to him for many minutes without 
forgetting all the defects of art or taste in the overpowering 
sensations of delight ! " And in Story's life just issued from 
the press, there are many additional proofs of the power 
wielded by Pinkney over that consummate judge. In letter 
after letter, Story pours forth expressions of wonder and as- 
tonishment at the surpassing splendor of his mind, and the 
depth of his ratiocination, and copiousness and compass of his 
legal learning. Amid the living forms of Dexter and Emmet, 
orators of whom any land might be proud, Pinkney stood 
forth the confessed favorite of Story. That I may not be 
supposed to overestimate his opinion of Mr. Pinkney, I will 
insert one or two extracts from letters recently pubhshed. 



84 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

"Every time I hear Pinkney he rises higher and higher in my 
estimation. His clear and forcible manner of putting his 
case before the court, his powerful and commanding eloquence^ 
occasionally illuminated with sparkling lights, but always 
logical and appropriate, and above all, his accurate and dis- 
criminating law knowledge, which he pours out with wonder- 
ful precision — give him in my opinion a great superiority 
over every man whom I have known. I have seen in a single 
man each of those qualities separate, but never before com- 
bined in so extraordinary a degree," Again : " His genius 
and eloquence were so lofty, I might almost say, so unrivalled, 
his learning so extensive, his ambition so elevated, his polit- 
ical and constitutional principles so truly just and pure, his 
weight in the public councils so decisive, his character at the 
bar so peerless and commanding, that there seems now left a 
dismal and perplexing vacancy. I write to you while sitting 
in court, and as the argument is now taking an interesting 
turn, I must now stop and listen ; but never do I expect to 
hear a man like Pinkney, He was a man who appears 
scarcely once a century." Speaking of Dexter he adds : " I 
always considered him second only to our inimitable friend 
Pinkney. In the phrase of a painter, I would say Pinkney's 
character and mind would be a great study." — Story's Life. 
Vol. I. 

And who was Story ? Himself one of the first men the 
country has produced, in whom the very soul of eloquence 
glowed ; a stern judge called upon to weigh arguments and 
resist eloquence, save where they were the faithful echoes of 
law and justice, with no spirit of rivalry to bias his judg- 
ment, and all his enthusiastic love of the North to excite 
his sectional pride — is spell-bound, thrilled, transported by 
the wonderful jjowers of Pinkney's oratory. A mixed audience 
might have been deceived, and juries hurried on beyond dis- 
cretion, by the melodious tone, the look, or gesture ; but 
Story could only have been so moved and excited by the true 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 85 

genius of oratory. I know nothing which aflforcls a more 
demonstrative evidence of the power of an orator, than the 
ability to move and sway so consummate a judge, himself pre- 
eminently skilled in all the mysteries of the moving art. 
Marshall, a more severe judge of oratory, because not him- 
self of the imaginative cast, paid a no less marked and 
splendid tribute in the memorable opinion in the Nereide. 

" With a pencil dipped in the most vivid colors, and 
guided by the hand of a master, a splendid portrait has been 
drawn, exhibiting this vessel and her freighter as forming a 
single figure, composed of the most discordant materials of 
peace and war. So exquisite was the skill of the artist, so 
dazzling the garb in which the figure was painted, that it 
required the exercise of that cold investigating faculty which 
ought always to belong to those who sit on this bench, to 
discover its only imperfection — its want of resemblance." 
— Marshall's Opinion in the Nereide. 

I dwell upon these frank and ingenuous attestations, be- 
cause it has been sometimes denied that Mr. Pinkney was an 
orator. 

The distinguished biographer of Mr. Wirt, whose tran- 
scendent talents I am neither slow to acknowledge nor re- 
luctant to praise, has done injustice — I will do him the jus- 
tice to believe, unintentional — to the memory of Mr. Pink- 
ney. That accomplished scholar says (page 400, Vol. I.) that 
"impartial and judicious estimate of Mr. Pinkney's powers 
and acquirements seems rarely to have been accorded to him " 
— and then again he speaks " of exaggerated praise." Now 
the learned and Hon. Ex-Secretary of the Navy will, I think, 
find it difficult to sustain his judgment, when he remembers, 
that a Story professes himself the delighted captive of an 
eloquence as rare as it was brilHant, " embellished, when the 
occasion called for it, with all the gorgeous amplitude and 
magnificence of a Bolingbroke and Burke;" and listens to 
the warnings of a Marshall, declaring that it required all the 



86 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

sterner quailities of tlie judge to resist the power of the ad- 
vocate. If this be exaggerated praise — if impartial and ju- 
dicious estimate of power and acquirement be not here ac- 
corded, we must adopt the opinion that Marshall and Story- 
were not competent to judge, or else given to sycophantic 
and servile praise. The trophies of Mr. Pinkney's powers 
are too numerous and exalted to admit of depreciation with 
impunity, now that the winding-sheet and shroud are the 
only covering of the mighty dead ; and surely on no soil less 
appropriate, and by no pen less befitting, could the wrong .be 
perpetrated, which would dim in the least the fame of Pink- 
ney, than on the soil of his birth, and by the pen of one, 
whom his fellow-citizens have delighted to honor as another 
of her distinguished sons. 

The title of Mr. Pinkney to the character of an orator de- 
pends not then on the breath of mere popular applause. It 
is based on a rock impervious to the assaults of envy — the 
possession of the highest intellectual endowments and the 
achievement of the rarest intellectual victories, not obtained 
over ignorance and folly, but over the noblest and most com- 
manding intellect ; not once, but again and again, amid com- 
petitors with whom it would be a signal honor to dispute the 
palm for ascendency. 

That Mr. Pinkney was the butt of much ilHberal and 
envious depreciation, I am ready to admit. But the names 
of his depredators will perish, while his own endures. Who 
need be reminded that a member of Congress held up his 
speech on the Missouri compromise to pubhc scorn and ridi- 
cule ; and is ignorant that the anonymous calumny has out- 
lived every other deed of the author. Defamation is easy. 
Fault-finding is the work of little minds. If the fact that 
Mr. Pinkney was " hawked at by such mousing owls, bhds 
of the night," who could not endure the bright shining of 
the sun, be proof that judicious and impartial estimate has 
been rarely accorded to him ; — why then, indeed, the biogra- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 87 

pher of Mr. Wirt lias proved his point. But if the facts 
above enumerated — the power wielded by Mr. Pinkney over 
such minds as Story's and Marshall's ; his holding, time and 
again, large promiscuous audiences spell-bound through the 
long discussions of dry questions of law — be not proof of 
oratorical power and profound acquirement, why, then, there 
can be no proof adduced which is conclusive of the point. 

There wiU be always envious detractions, jealous out- 
breakings. Some minds are jiroof against proof I do not 
mean to intimate that so distinguished a scholar as Mr. 
Kennedy, can be classified with such. I only regret that he 
should have permitted himself to lend even a seeming sanc- 
tion to their crude criticisms, and recorded, as his deliberate 
judgment, the opinion "that judicious and impartial esti- 
mate of Mr. Pinkney's power and acquirements was rarely 
accorded to him." I regret it, because the severity of his 
censure must fall upon the best judges of forensic ability in 
the laud, and place him among the critics of one, whom, to 
use the language of Johnson, if we are correct in our facts, 
"it is vain to blame and useless to praise." 

Had I undertaken to indulge in a mere indiscriminate 
praise and immoderate eulogy, Mr. Kennedy would be safe 
from impeachment ; for his competency to judge would be 
deemed greater than my own. But facts are stubborn things, 
and no man can overturn them. It is to facts I appeal. The 
claim to oratory is one thing ; the achievements of oratory 
are another. The claim I predicate on the achievements, 
and I feel a strong confidence, that the judgment of Mr. 
Kennedy cannot stand so long as those achievements exist. 
My appeal is from Mr. Kennedy to the Storys and Marshalls 
of the land. 

John Randolph knew and felt the power of Mr. Pinkney ; 
and on the floor of Congress, after full opportunities of judg- 
ing, he pronounced the following eulogy : 

" We have been talking of General Jackson, and a greater 



88 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

man than he is not here, but gone for ever ! I allude, sir, to 
the boast of Maryland and the pride of the United States, — 
the pride of us all, and particularly the pride and ornament 
of that profession of which you, Mr. Speaker (Stephenson), 
are a member, and an eminent one. He was a man with 
whom 1 lived when a member of this house, and a new one 
too ; and ever since he left it for the other — I speak it with 
pride — in habits not merely negatively friendly, but of kind- 
ness and cordiality. The last time I saw him was on Sat- 
urday, the last Saturday but one, in the pride of life, and 
full j)ossession and vigor of all his faculties, in that lobby. 
He is now gone to his account (for as the tree falls so must 
it lie) where we must all go — ^where I must soon go, and by 
the same road too — the course of nature ; and where all of 
us, put off the evil day as we may, must also go. For what 
is the past but a span ; and which of us can look forward 
to as many years as we have lived ? The last act of inter- 
course between us was an act, the recollection of which I 
would not be without for all the offices that all the men of 
the United States have filled, or ever shall fill. He had, in- 
deed, his faults, his foibles ; I should rather say his sins. 
Who is without them ? Let such, such only, cast the first 
stone. And these foibles, if you will, which every body 
could see, because every body is clear-sighted with regard to 
the faults and foibles of others, he, I have no doubt, would 
have been the first to acknowledge on a proper representation 
of them. Every thing now is hidden from us, — not, God 
forbid, that utter darkness rests upon the grave, which, hid- 
eous as it is, is lighted, cheered, and warmed with light from 
heaven ; not the impious fire fabled to be stolen from heaven 
by the heathen, but by the Spirit of the living God, whom 
we profess to worship, and whom I hope we shall spend the 
remainder of the day in worshipping ; not with mouth honor, 
but in our hearts, in spirit and in truth ; that it may not be 
said of us also, ' this people draweth nigh to me with their 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 89 

lips, but their heart is far from me.' Yes, it is just so ; he is 
gone. I will not say that our loss is irreparable, because such 
a man as has existed, may exist again. There has been a 
Homer, there has been a Shakspeare, there has been a 
Milton, there has been a Newton. There may be another 
Pinkney, but there is none now. And it was to announce 
this event that I have risen. I am almost inclined to believe 
in presentiments. I have been, all along, as well assured of 
the fatal termination of that disease with which he was af- 
flicted, as I am now ; and I have dragged my weaiy limbs 
before sunrise to the door of his sick chamber (for I would 
not intrude on the sacred grief of the family), almost every 
morning since. From the first, I had almost no hope." 

" In those early and pious visitations to the sick chamber 
of virtue and genius (says Mr. Garland, the accomphshed 
biographer of Randolph), he was frequently accompanied by 
the Chief Justice. What a beautiful and touching tribute 
to the memory of Pinkney, that the greatest orator and 
statesman, and the greatest jurist of his age, should watch 
with so much interest and tenderness the last expiring breath 
of him, who in life had rivalled the one in eloquence and the 
other in profound learning." — Eandolph's Life, vol. ii. 169, 170. 

No man was more sparing of his praise, — and yet he 
bowed in willing homage before the oratory of Pinkney, be» 
cause it was genuine and pure ; thought and feeling com- 
bined, dressed in the most exquisite garb ; words of beauty 
and images of fire. 

I make on this head no comjoarisons. I desire to make 
none. In a country that has given birth to a Patrick Henry, 
an Ames, a Dexter, a Wirt, a Clay, a Calhoun, and a Web- 
ster, orators who may well vie with those of Greece, and 
Rome ; it is not my purpose to institute invidious compari- 
sons. But still among them, in the foremost rank, stood 
William Pinkney; and that as I have shown, not in my too 
partial estimate, but upon the authority of those who were 



90 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

farthest removed from the bias of prejudice, and otherwise most 
competent to decide. 

A contributor to the North American, vol. xxiv. page 68, 
thus writes : 

" To the time of his last appearance in public in Wash- 
ington, the court room was always thronged with the wise, 
the learned and the fashioijable, when it was known that he 
was to speak ; and he uniformly riveted the attention of his 
auditors through the technical detail of his longest and dryest 
arguments." And the same might be said, with equal truth, 
of his repeated efforts in other tribunals in other portions of 
the Union. This one fact is worth a thousand assertions, in 
j)roof of his power as an orator. 

The discussions of the Senate chamber are of deep and 
absorbing interest to the crowds that are accustomed to at- 
tend upon them. The orator has in his subject a strong 
and powerful chord of sympathy between himself and his 
audience. Not so, except in a few particular cases, in the 
discussions beford the court. And yet Mr. Pinkney kept his 
fascinating spell upon the large and promiscuous crowd, at 
the same time he poured into the ear of judicial wisdom the 
wonderful stream of his concise and profound legal logic. 
The wise and the learned would sit for hours dehghted and 
thrilled, while such masters of the law, as the judges of the 
supreme court, were time and again greeted with a chain of 
legal argument as massive and solid in its structure, as though 
each link was of diamond solidity and the whole a cable of 
impregnable strength. 

I give to the malicious and envious the full weight of the 
defects they are able to discover, — I listen unmoved to their 
fastidious criticisms, so long as tliis one fact (excelled in none 
of the features of mental and moral grandeur by the present 
or the past) remains undisputed and indisputable. The 
eloquence of Pericles is known chiefly by its effects, and it 
has been said of him by one competent to judge, " that he 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 91 

was strong in the weakness of his audience." Not so, the 
subject of this memoir, Mr. Gihner of Virginia furnishes 
me, in his masterly sketches, with a hapj)y conchision to this 
portion of my portraiture ! " The powers of Mr. Pinkney's 
mind seemed to strengthen with his years and expand with 
his subject. Of all the exhibitions of his eloquence, his reply 
to Mr. King in the Senate on the Missouri restriction " (of 
which I shall have occasion to speak hereafter), "was, perhajDS, 
that in which the force of his genius was the most conspicu- 
ous and ovei-whelming, and enough of itself to entitle him to 
i\iQ first jilace among living orators. He not only sustained 
his reputation, but surpassed the most exaggerated ideas 
which had been entertained of his abilities. Seldom in either 
hemisphere has the English language been the medium of 
sublimer eloquence. He shed lustre upon letters, renown 
upon Congress, glory on the country! The United States 
owe lasting obligations to Mr. Pinkney for having scattered 
the forces of political crusaders before they began their devas- 
tations." — Gilmer's Sketches, p. 53. 

Eloquentia aut ajquavit pra3stantissimorum gloriam aut 
excessit. Quis sententiis aut acutior aut crebrior ? Quis 
verbis aut ornatior aut elegantior ? Audax orator, cumula- 
tus omni laude. 



92 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 



PINKNEY A LAWYER. 

Mr. Pinkney was more than an orator. He was a consum- 
mate lawj^er. The bar was his own chosen and favorite 
arena. If he left it for a season, it was only to serve his 
country and recruit his exhausted strength, after labors 
that would have crushed a less vigorous constitution ; and 
to return to it with increased ardor and intensity, and 
with additional stores of vast and varied learning. He 
studied law, as before stated, intently amid the blandishments 
and glitter of foreign courts, and never for a moment lost 
sight of this, the calling in life most suited to his tastes and 
congenial to his habits. Not more remarkable for depth and 
accuracy than extent and variety of legal learning, he stood 
by universal suffrage in the very foremost rank of advocates. 
Every inch of his fame in this department was won by giant 
struggles and herculean labors. He relied not on the singu- 
lar quickness of his perceptions. He depended not on force 
of genius. Not satisfied with having mastered all the great 
principles of the legal science, he sought in each case he 
argued, to enlarge his own professional attainments. His 
hard-earned fame he kept constantly before him ; and each 
succeeding effort was but a struggle to surpass himself 

It was his great ambition to toil night and day in the 
investigation and elucidation of the merits of a cause, so that 
he might hope to enlighten each tribunal he addressed. By 
turning to the law reports of the day, meagre and insufficient 
as most of them are, we shall find not a few acknowledgments 
from sources whose names are praise, that he did not labor 
in vain. Those records teem with the matured fruits of his 
large experience and profound learning. The philosophy of 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 93 

the Law was his study and delight ; and ever animated by 
the most exalted sense of the dignity- and grandeur of his 
profession, he always addressed himself to the higher feelings 
and principles of our nature. 

Mr. Pinkney possessed two very rare qualities, rare at 
least in their combination, viz., the power of concentration, 
and the power of £fmplification. And each he possessed in 
marvellous perfection. He could go down to the very kernel, 
and contract the lines of his argument, until at the very 
heart of his subject you could see it through and through ; or 
he could sow his arguments broadcast, and expand and amplify 
them, until you were completely overpowered by the surpassing 
luxuriance of thought and fertility of intellectual resources. 

He particularly excelled in the statement of a cause. 
Judge Story says of him, that his very statement was an 
argument. And I know not that a more striking proof 
could be afforded of the power of condensation. There was 
one tiling that marked the character of Mr. Pinkney's mind, 
as I ha^'e already intimated, and strikingly distinguished it 
from that of most other men, ancient and modern. I allude 
to the union of depth and brilliancy. He was the most 
argumentative of speakers ; and when he chose, he could be 
dazzhngly gorgeous. Judge Marshall bore honorable witness 
to his argumentative powers, of which he possessed a rare 
opportunity of judging, when he pronounced him, as Story 
tells us, the closest reasoner he had ever heard. Of the 
scope and vigor of his imagination it would be idle to speak. 

The opinion has been entertained, and not unfrequently 
advanced, that brilliancy and depth are, as it were, antago- 
nistic to each other ; dissociahiles res, which are incajpable of 
combination in a single mind. Profundity has been associated 
with dryness. Tropes and figures of rhetoric, similes and 
metaphors, have been deemed beneath the use of a logical 
reasoner. That they are, in point of fact, oftentimes dis- 
sociahiles res, no one will or can dispute, who has witnessed 



94 I'IFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

the mental developments of the age, and seen how one will 
excel in splendid declamation who is totally disqualified to 
unravel the intricate thread of an argument, and pursue a 
close logical discussion ; and another exhibit great powers of 
reasoning, who is incapable of soaring, on strong wing, 
among things grand and beautiful. But that there is any 
antagonism between the two I totally denj^. The imagination 
is not opposed to the reasoning faculty, or inconsistent with 
it. On the contrary it is, when possessed in perfection, one 
of its most valuable and powerful auxiliaries. It groups and 
combines, and then all over the dry field of argumentation 
it diffuses the energy of an ever active life. Johnson main- 
tained " that metaphorical expression is of great excellence 
in style, where it is used with propriety, because it gives us 
two ideas for one, and conveys the meaning more luxuriously, 
and generally with a perception of dehght." It is a gross 
and unwarrantable disparagement of the imagination, to con- 
sider its chief office to be embellishment. The imagination 
is eminently practical. It sees things in their strongest light 
and sets them forth with uncommon vigor. When combined 
with a faculty mighty to reason, it is eminently argumenta- 
tive. By making the discussion more grand, and imparting 
something of its own magnificence to the mere deductions 
of reason, it does not diminish the strength or abate the 
vigor. It throws light and heat all around it. It illustrates, 
enforces, deepens the impression. It is the soul of argument, 
and in its sublimest and mightiest soarings, it is vehement 
argumentation. Of course, I am speaking of imagination 
when in combination with logical precision and mental force 
— imagination in its highest form and noblest development ; 
the imagination of a well-balanced and thoroughly disci- 
plined mind. Where the reasoning faculty is weak, the im- 
agination cannot supply the deficiency. It may dazzle and 
corruscate, but it cannot enlighten. It may inflame and ex- 
cite thefeehngs, but it will not assist or inform the judgment. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 95 

But where the reasoning power exists and exerts itself, the 
imagination, seizing hold of the deductions of reason, and fol- 
lowing \t pari 2mssu in its most elaborate processes; or else 
anticipating it in its somewhat projihetic spirit, gives them 
life, and clothes them with increased might and power. I 
am not combating a shadow — endeavoring to refute a mere 
figment of my own fancy. For what is more common than 
the expression, that a speech or argument is beautiful and 
splendid, but that it wants depth and force — or that a speech 
is solid and convincing, but dry and argumentative. The 
expression has its foundation in the popular misapprehension 
of the subject. What is dry, is oftentimes deemed profound, 
because it is dry ; and what is splendid is deemed unsub- 
stantial, because it is splendid. Men forget that there is a 
diamond in the mind, a diamond brilliancy and a diamond 
solidity, — that the imagination is the handmaid of reason, 
— that where the power to explore the depths of a subject 
exists, the imagination is an efficient helper in the exjjlora- 
tion. The union of the imaginative with the reasoning 
faculty, is as rare as the possession of first-rate intellect. But 
it is not a thing impossible. It has existed, — it does exist ; 
and where it exists, there can be no reasonable doubt that 
the one strengthens and enriches the other, — that the two 
are more powerful in union. " It was not a chain of reason- 
ing, though close and cogent as if delivered in the Areopa- 
gus ; it was not only a display of imagination, however chas- 
tened from Asiatic luxuriance ; nor an appeal to the passions, 
however moving and vehement ; it was a combination of all 
that in the language of a distinguished Greek scholar gave 
to the eloquence of Pericles its power and charm, and secured 
for him the title of the Prince of eloquence in his genera- 
tion." It was a like combination that gave to Mr. Pinkney 
his vast celebrity as an orator and lawyer, during a life spent 
in the constant struggles of the forum. His imagination 
never degenerated into mere vapid declamation. It burned 



96 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

and glowed all along the path of his argument, and enriched 
it occasionally with what Judge Story calls "sparkling 
lights/' never alien to the strict line of the argument or held 
up in the wrong place. His imagination was hut the poetic 
form of his ratiocination — the dazzling garh now and then 
thrown over the cooler deductions of his reasoning. Indeed, 
the imagination and the reasoning faculty Avere the workshop, 
in which his massive argument was woven, and it would have 
been impossible to separate the golden and silver threads of 
the woof, without wholly marring the texture. Burke was 
the profoundest of philosophers, and yet he possessed a huge 
imagination, which poured a flood of light over the pathway 
of his argumentation ; and he must be pitied, who cannot 
see that the profound was rendered more profound by the vast 
compass and gorgeous magnificence of the imagination, which 
enlightened while it dehghted. Barrow was a profound the- 
ological reasoner, and yet he was a man of marvellous scope 
of imagination. Hooker was the most masterful of them aU, 
and who doubts that his immortal work was made the more 
immortal by the gorgeousness of the imagination that glows 
and burns through all its pages, 

Mr. Pinkney was accustomed to sound all the depths of 
the subjects he investigated and discussed. Superficiality he 
detested,^a false and spurious pretence to learning he ab- 
horred, — and yet he could indulge at times in passages of 
such inimitable beauty and power, so natural and artistically 
woven into the thread of his argument, that you could scarce 
discover where they began or ended. They seemed, as indeed 
they did, to grow out of the subject, to be an essential ele- 
ment in it, the outbursting flower from the parent stem, the 
living germ on the thrifty and vigorous plant. No one held 
in greater abhorrence or more severely reprobated, as will be 
seen in his own rich criticism on poHtical sketches, what 
might be called a sickly sentimentalism of style, or an ex- 
travagant and irregular indulgence of fancy. Perspicuity 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 97 

was the thing of primary importance in his estimation. He 
allowed notliing to darken or obscure his meaning. His fig- 
ures were never crowded together, or jumbled up in motley 
confusion. They were never far-fetched or unnatural. Ex- 
quisite taste guided the helm, and the imagination in its 
richest glow was ever obedient to the pilot. He never used 
it for mere ornament. He used it as the handmaid of reason. 
Force and appropriateness of diction and simplicity of illus- 
tration were the chosen vehicles of his thoughts. Strength 
made beautiful, when the occasion called for it, gave a pecu- 
liar fascination and nerve to his style. Thought, however, 
always predominated over expression. Imagination in its 
highest and purest form occupied in all his discussions the 
place of an uucm-bed, unrestrained, artificial fancy. To con- 
vince, not dazzle, was his high object ; and yet from the native 
splendor of his mind, he insensibly dazzled in the very act 
of convincing. 

His style of argument on legal questions was peculiar to 
himself, founded on no particular model. It was original 
and striking. In many discussions before the Supreme Court, 
those peculiar powers were conspicuously displayed. I will 
mention but two, the Bank case and the Nereide ; and I 
cite these two, because while in themselves of deepest mag- 
nitude, I am enabled to review a criticism of Mr. Legare of 
South Carolina on the former, and an animadversion of Mr. 
Phillips, the Irish barrister, in his life of Curran, on an inci- 
dent connected with the latter. The array of counsel in the 
Bank case was truly splendid. By the side of Pinkney stood 
Webster and Wirt, "the Gothic and Corinthian" pillar; 
opposed to them were Martin, Hopkinson and Walter Jones 
— the last named, the connecting link that binds the past to 
us, a man of the rarest powers of eloquence, and the pro- 
foundest powers of reasoning. It was not possible for six 
such minds to be brought into such stirring proximity, with- 
out the keenest intellectual rivalry. The theme was worthy 
7 



98 LIFE OF "WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

of tlie men, and the scene of the conflict worthy of both. 
It was in this bright array of talent, that Mr. Pinkney rose 
to conckide the argument ; and although he was three days 
in the discussion, Judge Stoiy tells us that it was " worth 
a journey from Salem to hear it." 

Mr. Legare pronounces a rather dogmatic opinion on the 
merits of the argument. He jeers Mr. Pinkney for not go- 
ing beyond the English text-books, and taunts him for not 
going more deeply into the subject than Dr. Blackstone. It 
almost excites a smile to hear such a charge brought against 
one who stood, in his day, the very embodiment of legal 
learning and patient research. Our surprise is increased, 
because of this very speech Justice Story thus writes (vol. I. 
page 325) : " I never in my whole life heard a greater speech. 
He spoke like a great statesman and patriot, and sound con- 
stitutional lawyer — all the cobwebs of sophistry and meta- 
physics about State rights and State sovereignty he brushed 
away with a mighty besom." 

Mr. Legare does not do Mr. Pinkney's argument in that 
cause full and ample justice. He says that Mr. Pinkney 
" began his argument by declaring that he did not consider 
the constitutionality of the Bank as an open question, because 
it had been assumed by Congress and acquiesced in for thirty 
years." Let us now look into the report in Mr. Wheaton, 
and see how the case really stands. After a most admirable 
and masterly discussion of the powers of the State and 
General Governments, Mr. Pinkney contended, that the ques- 
tion of the constitutionality of the Bank was to be settled on 
authority and principle. " The constitution acts on the peo- 
ple by means of powers communicated directly from the peo- 
ple. No State in its corporate capacity ratified it, but it 
was proposed for adoption to popular conventions. It springs 
from the people precisely as the State constitutions spring 
from the people, and acts on them in a similar manner. The 
federal powers are just as sovereign as those of the States. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 99 

The constitutionality of the establishment of the Bank, as one 
of the necessary means to carry into effect the authority vested 
in the General Government, is no longer an open question. It 
has been long since settled by decisions of the most revered 
autliority, legislative, executivey and judicial. A legislative 
construction in a doubtful case, persevered in for a course of 
years, ought to be binding on the court. This however is 
not a question of construction merely, but of political neces- 
sity, on which Congress must decide. The members of the 
convention, who framed the constitution, passed into the 
first Congress by which the new government was organized. 
They must have understood their own work. They declared 
that the constitution gave to Congress the power of incorpo- 
rating a bank. It is an historical fact of great importance 
in this discussion, that amendments to the constitution were 
actually proposed, in order to guard against the establishment 
of commercial monopolies. The legislative precedent estab- 
lished in 1791 has been followed up by a series of acts of 
Congress, all conferring the authority." 

It was not the mere assumption by Congress of the power, 
but the settlement of the question by the most revered 
authorities, legislative, executive, and judicial, upon which 
Mr. Pinkney relied in the discussion of that great cause ; and 
that, too, in a doubtful case of construction. The report of 
the cause may be found in Wheaton's reports, vol. 4, Febru- 
ary term, 1819. And whoever desires to test the value of 
Mr. Legard's strictures need only turn to Mr. Pinkney's ar- 
gument, where he will find, even in the skeleton gleanings 
of the accomplished reporter, one of the ablest and most 
unanswerable expositions of the great constitutional question, 
which has since been exhumed by the refined metaphysicians 
of South Carolina to agitate and disturb the peace of the 
Union, but with no other result than their own chagrin and 
disappointment. It is sufficient to remind the reader of 
Mr. Legare's critique, that the reasonings of this speech 



100 LIFE OF "WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

upon tlie principles of constitutional law involved, were en- 
dorsed by the Storj^s and Marshall s of this land ; and in- 
grafted on the statute books of the court, though not deeper 
than Dr. Blackstone. Judge Marshall's opinion gives a judi- 
cial clothing to many points of Pinkney's argument. 

I regret the necessity of being compelled to notice the 
review in question, because Mr. Legare is not now alive ; 
but at the time he wrote it the voice of Pinkney had been 
hushed in death, and his name was inscribed on the cold 
marble. 

The speech on the Nereide, though not so successful with 
the court, was a splendid specimen of forensic power. It 
has been long before the public, though in mutilated form 
and garbled extracts, and they can judge of it for them- 
selves. 

I will be excused for pausing a moment, while I examine 
a statement made by Mr. Phillips in his life of Curran, of a 
collision between Mr. Emmet and Mr. Pinkney in the cause 
of the Mary and that of the Nereide, which is wide of the 
truth. Speaking of Mr. Pinkney's assault he says, " Em- 
met's demeanor was such in noticing it, that shame extorted 
next day from his defeated adversary a eulogium which he 
doubtless estimated at what it was worth," and then he puts 
into Mr. Emmet's mouth the following language : "I know 
not by what name arrogance and presumption may be called 
on this side of the water, but I am sure he never could have ac- 
quired those manners in the polite circles of Europe which 
he had long frequented as a public minister." He refers for 
authority to Madden's lives of United Irishmen. By parti- 
cular examination, I find the aifair thus stated by him: 
" The latter (Mr. Pinkney) closed his argument in a very 
important cause, and with his characteristic arrogance alluded 
to the fact of Mr. Emmet's emigration to the United States. 
When he had concluded his argument, Mr. Emmet rose and 
took up the mode and manner in which his opponent had 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 101 

treated him. He Scaid he was Mr. Pinkney's equal in birth, 
rank, and connections, and he was not his enemy. He knew 
not by what name arrogance and presumption might be called 
on this side of the ocean, but sure he was that Mr. Pinkney 
never acquired those manners in the polite circles of Europe, 
which he had frequented as a public minister. Mr. Pink- 
ney was not ready at retort, and made no reply. But a 
few days afterwards, it so happened that Mr. Emmet and 
Mr. Pinkney were again, opposed to each other in a cause of 
magnitude, and it fell to Mr. Emmet's part to close the 
argument, who was determined that his antagonist should be 
put in mind of his former deportment and expressions. Pink- 
ney was aware of the thunderbolt in store, and took the op- 
portunity of paying to Mr. Emmet's genius, fame, and pri- 
vate worth, the highest tribute of respect. This respect was 
never again violated." — Madden' s Life of Thomas A. Emmet. 
He added further — " When Mr. Emmet rose out of his place 
as before stated. Chief Justice Marshall indicated great un- 
easiness, thinking that something unpleasant might be the re- 
sult. Mr. Justice Livingston remarked in a whisjier, ' Let him 
go on ; I will answer that he says nothing rude or improper.' 
With this, as well as the result, the Chief Justice was satis- 
fied." Mr. Phillips gives Madden as his authority, and Mad- 
den makes \\w> statement, supported by not so much as a 
shadow of authority. Mr. Phillips improves upon his author- 
ity, and speaks of Mr. Pinkney as a defeated adversary. 
Justice Story witnessed the first competition of those two 
illustrious men in the highest court of the Union : and so 
did Mr. Wheaton. We have their evidence in the case. In 
the first cause, that of the Mary, in which Mr. Pinkney in- 
dulged in some warmth of expression, justified as he at the 
time thought by the too free strictures of Mr. Emmet on one 
of his clients, so far from being the routed champion Mr. 
Phillips would represent. Justice Story, who sat in the cause, 
tells us in his published sketch of Mr. Emmet, that Mr. 



102 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

Pinkney " won an easy victory, and pressed his advantages 
with vast dexterity, and, as Mr. Emmet thougJit, with some- 
what the display of triumph." So much for one of the as- 
sertions of Mr. Phillips made professedly on authority, and 
yet unsustained by his own authority, and disproved by an- 
other. In the case of the Nereide, in which Mr. Emmet 
delivered a most masterly speech, Justice Story informs us 
that Mr. Emmet began by paying a generous tribute to the 
talents and acquirements of his opponent, whom fame and 
fortune had followed both in Europe and America. It is 
imj)Ossible, at this late day, to state what Mr. Emmet in 
reality said. But one thing is certain, the representations 
of excited partisans must be received with great distrust ; 
especially where the recorded statement of so distinguished 
a witness as Justice Story or Mr. Wheaton gives it no man- 
ner of countenance. Mr. Pinkney made the amende honor- 
able, and avowed his regret that he should have indulged in 
a seemingly unkind criticism upon his illustrious opponent, 
which was "deepened hj the forbearance and urbanity of his 
reply." Is it credible that Mr. Pinkney would publicly, in 
the presence of the court, where language so grossly insulting 
as that put into Mr. Emmet's lips must have been used, if 
used at all, have spoken of the forbearance and urbanity of 
a reply which had just branded him with insolence and pre- 
sumption and ill-breeding ? Will any one (who was at aU 
acquainted with Mr. Pinkney, or the court of which Judge 
Marshall was the honored head) believe that such common 
billingsgate abuse was either endured by liim or the court. 
I have far too much respect for Mr. Emmet to beheve that 
his lips were so employed. I think the statement sufficiently 
disproved by Mr. Emmet's high praise of Mr. Pinkney as re- 
corded by Story ; and the terms of Pinkney's own apology, 
an apology which does him infinite credit, whose eloquence 
is only equalled by its magnanimity; as well as the inherent 
probabilities of the case. As to the insinuations of Mr. Mad- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 103 

den, that Mr, Pinkney was induced by fear to disarm Mr. 
Emmet of the thunderbolt of vengeance by an unfelt and 
hypocritical profession of admiration, or that he was not 
ready at retort, it may pass current among foreigners, though 
a mere unproved assertion ; but where Mr. Pinkney was 
known, it will be read with a smile; for he was afraid, phy- 
sically or intellectually, of no man. To use his own expres- 
sion to Lord Wellesley, which an Englishman should be the 
last to forget, he neither sought nor shunned discussions, of 
wliich the tendency is merely to irritate. In the discussion 
on the Mary he had met with nothing to excite his fears, for 
Story represents him as a victor; and in the Nereide, 
although he failed to carry conviction to the court, he carried 
one of the brightest lights of that court with him, and based 
his argument upon principles, that were almost simultane- 
ously sanctioned by the highest judicial wisdom of England, 
and delivered a speech which, even in its present mutilated 
form, will ever rank among the finest specimens of forensic 
eloquence and power. 

Since writing the above, my attention was drawn to a 
passage in the life of the late Jeremiah Smith, a distinguished 
judge of New Hampshire. It is in these words : " Judge 
Spencer related to me the anecdote of Mr. Pinkney's attack 
onr Emmet in the Supreme Court of the United States. 
They were on opposite sides in an important cause, and one 
which Mr. Pinkney had much at heart, and was desirous of 
winning by fair or unfair means. In the course of the argu- 
ment, he travelled out of the cause to make observations 
personal and extremely offensive on Mr. Emmet, with a view 
probably of irritating and weakening his reply. When the 
argument was through, Mr. Emmet said perhaps he ought 
not to notice the remarks of the opposite counsel. Then fol- 
lows pretty much the above version, save these words: " He 
would only say that he had been informed that the learned 
gentleman had filled the highest office his country could be- 



104 LIFE OF WILLIi.M PINKNEY. 

stow at the court of St. James. He was sure he had never 
learned his breeding in that school. The court, the bar, and 
audience were delighted." 

This, it wiU be remembered, was not published until after 
Mr. Pinkney's death. In the first place, there is a gratuitous 
and unproved charge, that Mr. Pinkney was bent upon gain- 
ing the cause of the Mary by fair or unfair means — a charge 
made by a warm personal friend of Mr. Emmet without one 
tittle of evidence, and as I shall presently show, in the face 
of evidence to the contrary, and in violation of the facts in 
the case. In the second place, there is the imputation of a 
low and vulgar motive, at which every right-minded man re- 
coils, upon hare prohahility, "with a riow probably of irritat- 
ing and weakening the reply." The animus of this anecdote 
is its own beist and surest condemnation. The charge of 
unfairness, and the imputation of such a motive upon mere 
probability, when brought against one whom Justice Story 
represents as of the most peerless character at the bar, are 
strange deeds in one, whose office it was to judge righteous 
judgment and base assertions, touching the illustrious dead, 
upon solid and substantial facts. The motive attributed to 
Mr. Pinkney is not only untrue, but impossible to be true. 
Mr. Emmet's argument was concluded, and could not there- 
fore be weakened by irritation. Mr. Wheaton, who was pre- 
sent, gives us the true motive ; and Justice Story conclusively 
proves, that there was no necessity for a resort to any thing 
like trick, if indeed Mr. Pinkney were capable of it, as he 
won by argument an easy victory. It is strange that Judge 
Story tells us nothing of the pleasure with which he listened 
to language far too coarse to have ever greeted the ear of such 
a tribunal as the Supreme Court of the Union. 

I am not to defend Mr. Pinkney in what he, upon re- 
flection, thought proper to acknowledge was not wholly de- 
fensible ; and for which he offered a full and gratuitous pubHc 
atonement. But when reports, extremely prejudicial to the 



LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNEY. 105 

character of another, are circulated after his death, and ac- 
companied hy gross abuse ; it is surely within the province 
of a biographer to sift the assertion, and, as far as the 
evidence will admit, disabuse the public mind, and set the 
matter right. A breath may tarnish the mirror of a peerless 
character, if suffered to remain upon it — and no one has a 
right to complain, if others are wounded in the mere sheer 
justice of rubbing it off. 

The name of Thomas A. Emmet recalls many thrilling 
reminiscences. The misfortunes of his early life, which 
was overhung with clouds, imparted a melancholy inter- 
est to his subsequent illustrious career. A man of rare 
eloquence and most commanding abilities, he lived to shed 
an additional lustre upon old Ireland ; for although his soft 
and persuasive oratory, and the breathings of his pure and 
enhghtened patriotism were hushed on the banks of Killar- 
ney, and he was compelled to fly the Ireland he loved, and 
seek and find a shelter beneath the outspread wings of the 
American eagle ; he enjoyed the enviable pleasure of know- 
ing; that the echoes of his fame became familiar sounds in 
every Irish homestead. Casting his eye over the names of 
her illustrious sons, her Goldsmiths, Burkes, Sheridans, 
Grattans, Currans, and his o\sti most gifted brother (the 
man whose epitaph wiU. yet be written); he could, Avith 
something of the exultation of patriotic pride, console him- 
self with the belief that he was not unmindful of their glory. 
If in the excitement of debate, there was a momentary jar 
between Ireland's favored son and Maryland's most admired, 
it was a jar in which neither was wholly blameless, and each 
triumphed by sacrificing obstinate self-pride in a cordial and 
mutual recognition and acknowledgment of all that was 
truly great in the other. I leave to malevolence on either 
side the waters, the gratification of parading forth infirmities 
that are common to us all, and overlooking \T.rtues that but 
few possess ; while the more pleasmg and grateful task is 



106 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

left me, of showing how the incidental misunderstanding be- 
tween them was adjusted without dishonor to either. 

Mr. Pinkney possessed an eminently legal mind ; quick, 
keen, discriminating, incredibly patient in investigation, and 
endowed with extraordinary powers of analysis. He studied 
Law as a science, and mastered it in all its departments. 
The whole domain of the common law was as familiar to his 
mind and thought, as the soil of his birth ; while the great 
principles of international law, and the not less imposing 
principles of our own august constitution, were thoroughly 
explored and comprehended by him. He was accustomed to 
refresh himself at the well springs, and drew his legal know- 
ledge from the great original sources, the masters whose ex- 
positions are decisions. Nothing of importance escaped his 
notice. Thoroughness and comprehensiveness combined to 
make him singularly learned in the Law. He never engaged 
in a cause without looking carefully and calmly into its 
merits, and sifting them through all their intricacies, and 
adjusting with the utmost precision the law to the facts. 
Once in the cause, he was perfect master of the ground. No 
error committed by those with whom he was called to graj)- 
ple, escaped his eager and eagle-eyed observation. Cool and 
cautious, he surveyed the whole field, and discovered at a 
glance where were the weak and where were the strong points 
of the assault and the defence. His own line of argument was 
most skilfully laid, and his authorities marshalled with con- 
summate judgment. Story says he never pressed weak points 
upon the court, and therein he showed his good sterling com- 
mon sense and high regard for professional propriety. He ex- 
pended his whole strength upon the really strong points in the 
case, and warred with the weapons of a giant. Investigation, 
deep, searching, laborious investigation, preceded and accom- 
panied all his discussions before the court. His habit of careful 
and diligent preparation (from which he never dejjarted, and 
which in reahfcy constituted one of the marvels of his life), 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 107 

gave rise to the idea that his mind was slow in its operation, and 
that his speeches were written out before they were delivered, 
and that he was deficient in what are called the powers of ex- 
temporaneous debate — an idea the farthest possible removed 
from the fact. Those who were accustomed to listen to his 
legal arguments, most elaborately prepared, were- mot un- 
frequently astonished at his prompt responses, when consult- 
ed as an amicus curicc, upon points suddenly sprung upon 
the court, which resembled the gushings forth from an over- 
flowing fountain, and were not more characterized by lofty 
eloquence, than wonderful precision and exactness. He who 
never presumed to present himself before a court, but after 
the most patient and profound examination of the case, in 
all its bearings, could, when the occasion called for it, pour 
forth his accurate and methodized legal learning with a force 
and precision truly wonderful. Those who were privileged 
to listen to his arguments continued hour after hour, have 
testified to the fact, that the scintillations of liis genius, 
emitted in the heat and excitement of debate, whether before 
the court or the Senate, possessed a beauty and a brilliancy 
that were never afterwards gathered up. So far from being 
carefully written out beforehand, they could not have been 
written at all. They were, to use the poetic language of 
another, like dew-drops that hang on the petals of flowers, 
which cannot be gathered. Mr. Pinkney possessed all the 
peculiar qualities of a powerful extemporaneous debater, viz., 
uuhmited command of language, inexhaustible fund of know- 
ledge, a powerful and retentive memory, and admirable self- 
possession. But he valued his reputation too highly; he 
too much respected the court and the audience, to go forth 
to the discussion without the last finish of the most exact 
and minute investigation. The writer of this memoir has 
heard several anecdotes of an authentic character, illustra- 
tive of his wonderful quickness of comprehension ; — one of 
wliich he begs permission to mention, as it came to him 



108 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

direct. It does honor to another of the distinguished sons of 
Maryland, who was himself a most eloquent and powerful 
advocate. Mr. * * * had a case to argue, and Mr. Pinkney 
was employed as associate counsel in the upper court. Dur- 
ing the consultation, in giving a history of the cause, one 
point was mentioned as of secondary importance. As soon 
as Mr. * * "••'" concluded, Mr. Pinkney said, " Do you take 
the points you prefer, and 1 will see what I can do with the 
one you reject." This excited curiosity, and when the argu- 
ment of Mr. Pinkney opened, his professional colleague re- 
mained to see what could he made of it ; and very soon dis- 
covered that it was the very gist of the cause. 

And yet, as I have shown, liis quickness of comprehen- 
sion never betrayed him into indolence. His perfect com- 
mand of the most appropriate, beautiful, and forcible diction, 
never surprised him into carelessness of preparation. His 
intimate familiarity with the legal lore of the past, and the 
enlightened decisions of the present, never tempted him 
into a confident presumption of authorities. His quickness 
of perception, compass of information, and brilliancy of 
genius, all disciplined by the severest and most constantly 
sustained study, gave him the pre-eminence he maintained 
at the bar, and made him the wonderful legal logician the 
North American Keview pronounced him to be. 

Mr. Pinkney entertained the most exalted idea of pro- 
fessional honor. There is a trifling circumstance mentioned 
in a letter, addressed by him to Mr. Kidgely of Maryland, 
now in my possession, which, as it sets forth this trait of 
character in a very striking light, I beg leave to copy : 

"October 2.2, 182L 

" giR ; — Since the writing of my letter of the 20th, in 
answer to yours of the 16th, Mr. Purviance and Mr. Wil- 
liams have, in your name and behalf, offered me a compen- 
sation (a check of one thousand dollars), in consequence of 



LIFE OF WILLIAM TINKNEY. 100 

my known determination to be neutral on your demand in 
the case of the Union Bank against you. But I could not, 
consistently with my notions of what I owe to my own cha- 
racter and the honor of the Bar, accept your fee, and there- 
fore I refused it (as doubtless they have infonned you), the 
moment it was tendered to me. 

" I am the general counsel of the Union Bank, and had, 
moreover, undertaken for it this cause in particular, having 
no idea that after the return of your retainer, with your 
own previous assent, there was, or coidd be any objection to 
my doing so ; or that I was expected, without any recom- 
pense, to decline the duties of my profession altogether in 
your cause, and in every other that should involve the 
same questions ; and if, from considerations of delicacy, I 
retire from the fulfilment of my engagement "with the Union 
Bank, I will not consent to be paid for it in any shape or 
manner by their opponent, or by any body else. My conduct 
on this occasion would cease to be worthy of the ajDprobation 
of my brethren and the public if I suffered my neutrality to 
be purchased, or to appear to be purchased, or in any way 
to be compensated to the prejudice of those who have hon- 
ored me with their confidence, and who, with their accus- 
tomed liberality, will, I am sure, excuse me for abandoning 
their cause upon disinterested motives under the circum- 
stances in which I am unexpectedly placed. 

" Your obedient servant, 

"William Pinknet." 

This letter speaks volumes. It exhibits a refinement of 
delicacy, and a nice sense of honor and propriety, that must 
receive universal commendation. It is the more beautiful, 
because it was a deed done in secret, and now only meets 
the public eye through the kind consideration of those who 
survive him, thirty years and more after he has passed from 
the sight of men. 



110 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

Four years after Mr. Pinkney's death, William Wirt 
thus wrote of him : " If he shall have a biographer of ge- 
nius, he will, by preserving the real echoes of his fame, do 
more for his immortality than Pinkney could have done for 
himself" — Vol. II, page 197. Those echoes of his fame (the 
oracular decisions of a Marshall, a Story, and a Wheaton), 
can never die away ; and, as long as they live, Pinkney's 
name will live with them. But stiU we must ever regret 
(Mr. Wirt's judgment to the contrary notwithstanding), 
that his speeches could not have been preserved as they 
were delivered ; since Wheaton and Story, both accom- 
plished scholars and fastidious judges of style and matter, 
have told us that they lost in every effort to report them. 

May we not justly say of him, — " Qui consulta patrum, 
qui leges juraque servat ? " 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. Ill 



WIRT AND PINKNEY. 

Justice to the character and memory of Mr. Pinkney makes 
it my duty to devote a few pages to the consideration of a 
portion of the memoir of Mr. Wirt, written by the Hon. J. 
P. Kennedy, a gentleman of literary distinction, well known 
to the American people. Holding Mr. Wirt's reputation, 
as a profound lawyer and brilliant orator, in very high es- 
teem, and recognizing in him a gentleman of varied accom- 
plishments, an ornament of the State of his birth and the 
country at large, I cannot but regret that his biographer 
has forced upon me this necessity. Fault-finding is always 
irksome and distasteful, but especially so where there is 
much to commend, as both well and wisely written ; and, 
if it were not for the fact that another distinguished name 
in Maryland might sufier, I should pass it by in silence. 

I do not animadvert upon this work merely because of 
the free expression of Mr. Kennedy's own opinion respecting 
the talents and acquirements of Mr. Pinkney; or the inser- 
tion of the still freer criticisms of the illustrious subject of 
his biography. They both had a right to form their esti- 
mate of Mr. Pinkney, and then publish it to the world. 
True it is, as I think I shall be able to show conclusively, 
the exercise of that right was singularly unfortunate ; as 
the tone and temper of the criticisms will be found, upon 
examination, to reflect but little credit upon either the 
judgment or liberality of their authors. They mar the 
work, and are a spot on the disk of one of Maryland's bright 
orbs. The insertion of those criticisms was exceedingly in- 



112 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

discreet. But indiscretion is no breach of the biographer's 
privilege ; nor is it all of which I feel myself entitled to 
complain on the part of Mr. Kennedy in this portion of his 
biography. He has thought proper to publish to the world 
letters, in which allusion is made to conversations that pur- 
port to have passed between Mr. Pinkney and Mr. Wirt 
alone (detrimental to the reputation of the former), upon 
Mr, Wirt's sole authority, long after the death of Mr. Pink- 
ney, and at a time when it is impossible to offer either ex- 
planation or a denial of their correctness. He has done 
more. He has woven a portion of those letters (the most 
oflPensive) into the very typography of the text, and thus 
given them his most solemn and deliberate endorsement. 

What man would be willing to have his occasional re- 
marks (they might have been playfully made) thirty years 
after his decease, when he is totally incapable of defending 
himself, chronicled to the world by his own personal rival ? 
Who would be wilhng to be thus personally judged ? With- 
out intentional misrepresentation (which I would be the 
last to impute to Mr. Wirt), we all know how easily a thing 
may be changed by a change in the tone and look, and how 
easily our own peculiar temperament at the time may give 
a coloring and bias to things in themselves perfectly trivial 
and unimportant. Trifles are not unfrequently magnified 
into some grave offence against the rules of good taste and 
high-toned bearing by a morbid and diseased sensitiveness, 
in moments of temporary excitement, when the power of a 
rival is felt. Impressions made at such a time, especially 
where we ourselves are the party directly concerned, are not 
to be trusted. If there be any principle of justice or pro- 
priety clearly estabhshed, it is this : that all repetition of 
conversations which occur in the privacy of personal inter- 
course, reflecting in the slightest degree on another, be pub- 
lished in his Hfetime, or else be consigned to the tomb of 
oblivion. In the publication of those letters of Mr. Wirt 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 113 

wliich contain a mere intellectual critique on Mr. Pinkncy, 
Mr. Kennedy has been singularly unfortunate ; while in tlie 
publication of those which are morally condemnatory, he 
has been unjust. The one is a fair subject of friendly criti- 
cism in return ; the other, a clear ground of imiicachment. 

I have said, that a careful inspection of Mr. Wirt's criti- 
cisms of Pinkney, will not enhance his discrimination as a 
judge, nor his magnanimity as a rival. Let me test the 
soundness of this assertion. And be it remembered that the 
biograjjher has opened this page of Mi-. Wirt's life, and must 
therefore bear the consequences of its analysis. On page 
402 of Vol. I. in a letter to Mr. Francis W. Gilmer, dated 
April 1st., 1816, we have a scathing dissection of Mr. Pink- 
ney's mental calibre. 

" Teach these boys, — as Pinkney said he would, do, — ' a 
new style of speaking.' But let it be a better one than 
his ; I mean his solemn style, to which, in Irish phrase, I give 
the back of my hand. If that be a good, style, then all the 
models, both ancient and modern, which we have been ac- 
customed to contemplate as truly great, — such as Crassus, 
Anthony, Cicero, the prolocutors of the Dialogue ' De causis 
corruptai eloquenti*,' Chatham, Henry, and others, — not 
forgetting ' Paul Jones and old Charon,' — are all pretenders. 
I know that this is not your opinion. But I was near him 
five or six weeks, and. watched him narrowly. He has noth- 
ing of the rai)id and unerring analysis of Marshall, — but he 
has in lieu of it, a dogmatizing absoluteness of manner which 
passes with the million, — which, by-the-by, includes many 
more than we should at first suspect, — for an evidence of 
power ; and he has acquired with those around him a sort of 
papal infallibility. That manner is a piece of acting ; it is 
artificial, as you may see by the wandering of his eye, and is 
as far re moved from the composed confidence of enlightened 
certainty, as it is from natural modesty. Socrates confessed 
that all the knowledge he had been able to acquire seemed 
8 



114 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

only to convince him that he knew nothing. This frankness 
is one of the most characteristic traits of a great mind. Pink- 
ney would make you believe that he knows every thing. 

" — At the bar he is despotic, and cares as little for his 
colleagues or adversaries as if they were men of wood. He 
has certainly much the advantage of any of them in forensic 
show. Give him time — and he requires not much — and he 
will deliver a speech which any man might be proud to claim. 
You will have good materials, very well put together, and 
clothed in a costume as magnificent as that of Louis XIV. ; 
but you will have a vast quantity of false fire, besides a ve- 
hemence of intonation, for which you see nothing to account 
in the character of the thought. His arguments, when I 
heard him, were such as would have occurred to any good 
mind of the profession. It was his mode of introducing, 
dressing and incorporating them, which constituted their 
chief value — ' materiem superabit opus. ' " 

This was not a hastily formed opinion. It was the result 
of mature reflection and close personal observation. Consist- 
ency may be said to be the very jewel of criticism. Not 
that I would intimate that our views may not be altered or 
modified by time and circumstances, without a forfeiture of 
our title to respect and confidence. But the criticism of to- 
day must be perfectly consistent with itself, to make it in 
any degree valuable. Where is the consistency of this crit- 
icism ? " Dogmatizing absoluteness of manner" not power; 
" forensic show" is all that in the first part of this letter he is 
willing to concede to Mr. Pinkney, after five or six weeks' close 
and narrow watching. And yet, upon short notice he will 
deliver a speech which any man would be proud to claim ; 
and still after all, the arguments he used, when Mr. Wirt 
heard him, were only such as would have occurred to any 
good mind of the profession, with a vast deal of false fire. 
Such is the character of the first criticism that AVirt passed 
upon Pinkney ; and Mr, Kennedy has deemed it wise to hand 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. US 

it down to the generation following. How any man, who 
has in Heu of unerring and rapid analysis, a dogmatizing ab- 
soluteness of manner, which is not power, but passes with 
the weak-minded million for an evidence of power, should be 
able, upon short preparation, to deliver a speech which any 
man would be proud to claim ;-and yet only stumble upon 
such arguments as would occur to any good mmd ot the pro- 
fession,°characterized with a vast deal of false fire, is a re- 
finement of distinction, that I candidly avow I cannot pene- 
trate This criticism destroys itself It was, as I have 
shown, not hastily formed, and cannot therefore plead negli- 
gence or haste in its extenuation; and although essentially 
modified in after years, the feeling that dictated ^t-dl serve 
as a key to help me to discover the true source of Mr. ^^ irt s 
strictuiL upon his rival. In a letter to Juc ge Carr, dated 
April 7th, 1816, he thus writes (Vol. I. p. 40o) . 

" In this hopeless situation I went to court, to try tlie 
tuc of war with the renowned P.inkney. When I thought 
of ''my situation,-of the theatre on which I was now to ap- 
pear for the first time,-the expectation which I was told 
was excited, and saw the assembled multitude of ladies and 
gentlemen from eveiy quarter of the Union, you may guess 
my feelings. Had I been prepared, how should I have gloried 
in that theatre, that concourse, and that adversary ! As it 
was my dear wife and children, and your features, look, and 
sympathetic voice and friendly inquietude, came over me 
like evil spiiits. To be sure, these considerations gave me a 
sort of desperate, ferocious, bandit-like resolution; but what 
is mere hrute resolution with a totally denuded mtellect ? 1 
gave, indeed, some hits which produced a visible and am- 
matino- effect ; but my courage sank, and I suppose my man- 
ner fell under the conscious imbecility of my argument. 1 
was comforted, however, by finding that Pinkney mended the 
matter very little, if at all. 

"Had the cause been to argue over again on the next 



116 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

day, I could have shivered him ; for his discussion revived 
all my forgotten topics, and, as I lay in my bed on the fol- 
lowing morning, arguments poured themselves out before me 
as from a cornucopia. I should have wept at the considera- 
tion of w^hat I had lost, if I had not prevented it by leaping 
out of bed, and beginning to sing and dance like a maniac." 

It is a curious fact, that this letter was penned but six 
days after the one just commented on. It is not a little sur- 
prising that dogmatizing absoluteness of manner and foren- 
sic show should have produced such a state of feeling at the 
prospect of actual collision. Unfortunately for Mr. Wirt, 
but most fortunately for his antagonist, the bed, not the forum, 
was the scene of this hopeless rout ; and Wirt himself, the 
graphic narrator of the shivering effects that would have 
followed the renewal of the contest. It was a wonderful 
transition from the imbecile argument to the teeming cornu- 
copia; and most fortunate for Pinkney was it, that the 
bed, being a non-conductor, saved him from the shivering 
bolt of legal eloquence and logic, before it laid him low in 
the dust of the dishonored forum. In a letter to Mrs. Wirt, 
dated April 7th, 1821 (Vol. II. p. 119), Mr. Wirt thus 
wrote : 

" This is the fourteenth day since this argument was 
opened. Pinkney, before he began, promised to speak only 
two hours and a half He has now spoken two days, and is, 
at this moment, at it again for the third day. You will be 
gratified to hear, that although there are four counsel on the 
same side with me, and the veteran General Harper, — 
hitherto the only Maryland rival of Pinkney, — among them, 
yet here the Attorney-General is regarded as liis chief an- 
tagonist, and the comparison made by the court, the bar and 
the bystanders, far from being to my prejudice." 

AU this may have been so in point of fact (but there are 
those alive who have heard other testimony from the court, 
to say notliing of the bar); but did it not occur to Mr. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 117 

Kennedy, that other less interested witnesses would more 
gracefully and properly have attested the fact, and that the 
wise words of Solomon are still, as they ever have been, the 
safest and best to follow? Wirt may have eclipsed the 
veteran Harper, a man as great as he was learned, and as 
lofty in spirit as he was ambitious to excel. He may have 
eclijised Pinkney in this cause. But the learned biographer 
will pity, if he does not excuse our incredulity, until he has 
explained to us how the opinion of the court, the bar and the 
bystanders, was gauged. Wirt doubtless thought as he 
wrote, and his friends may have told him so ; but friends 
are not always impartial, neither are they infallible. Our 
own opinions under such circumstances are surely as little to 
be trusted. Mr. Kennedy seems to have had a sort of pre- 
sentiment, that the insertion of such a letter might be open 
to criticism ; and bespeaks for it exemption, on the score of 
the peculiar circumstances under which it was written. He 
adds, " Trifles such as these, which on other occasions might 
be liable to disparaging comment, acquire value in a bio- 
graphical sketch, as exponents of characters. They are to 
be regarded as illustrative anecdotes, which often serve to 
cast a better light upon personal qualities or the features of 
the mind, than more earnest and acute dissertation. They 
are chiefly valuable in the present case, for the evidence they 
furnish us of that eager, sensitive, and stimulating desire in 
the breast of Wirt, to contend with and excel, if possible, 
the most renowned and skilful competitors in the theatre of 
his own art."— Vol, II. p. 119. 

These trifles consist, it will be borne in mind, of three 
letters (one of which alone I have commented on), April 2d, 
5th, and 7th ; in two of which Mr. Pinkney is held up to 
posterity in any thing but an amiable light, and in the 3d 
exhibited as comparing unfavorably with Wirt in the estima- 
tion of the court, bar, and bystanders. If they be, as Mr Ken- 
nedy affirms, exjionents of character, I am greatly in error 



118 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

if the friends of Mr, Wirt do not join me in the expression 
of opinion, that they have been most unfortunately inserted 
into his biography. Would any one, who takes time for 
reflection, wish to wound the feehngs of the friends of Mr. 
Pinkney, who survive him, (at a time too, when it is impos- 
sible for them to open the secrets of the past for his justifi- 
cation,) for the sake of inserting mere trifies and retaining 
the echo of a trumpet blast of victory sounded by Mr. Wirt's 
own lips ? As private letters, restricted to the private circles, 
I should have never ventured to criticise them. But Mr. 
Kennedy has made them public and endeavored to defend 
them as " exponents of chai-acter," although two of them 
bear unkindly upon the memory of one not living at the time 
of their publication ; and the other is a self-appropriated 
claim to victory. In another letter to Judge Carr, May 14th, 
1821 (Vol. II. p. 121), I read : 

" Why, Sir, have not I been to Bel Air, in the midst of 
it all, and bearded that ' * * * * * * magician Glen- 
dower,' without suffering the thousandth part that the earth 
did, at the birth of the Welshman ; nay, without suffering 
by the struggle or in the comparison ?" 

This reference to Glendower, the Welshman, seems to 
have been particularly pleasing to Mr. Wirt, as he introduces 
it on more than one occasion, when speaking of Mr. Pinkney. 
Judging from the tone and spirit of his letters, one might 
fancy that Wirt like Lancaster could " illy brook the men- 
tion of Glendower." I will not insinuate that the words of 
the Welshman could have been adopted by Mr. Pinkney. 

" Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head 
Against my power — thrice from the banks of Wye, 
And sandy-bottomed Severn, have I sent him 
Bootless home, and weather-beaten back." 

But surely this much I may do. I may well express my 
regret, that Wirt had not with Mortimer's magnanimity 
have divided the disputed realm. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 119 

" England, from Trent and Severn hitherto, 
By South and East is to ni}' part assigned : 
All westward. Wales, beyond the Severn shore, 
And all the fertile land within that bound, 
To Owen Glendower." — 

It may not be that Wirt's Glendower, like Shakspeare's, 
" gave the tongue a heli)ful ornament that was never seen 
before " — but still comparisons are sometimes stronger and 
more striking than we at first imagined. 

Again in a letter to Francis W. Gilmer, May 9th, 1822, 
p. 138, Vol. II. 

" Poor Pinkney ! he died opportunely for his fame. It 
could not have risen higher * * "'■'•■ ■••'". 

" He was a great man. On a set occasion, the greatest, 
I think, at our bar. I never heard Emmet nor Wells, and. 
therefore, I do not say the American bar. He was an ex- 
cellent lawyer ; had very great force of mind, great compass, 
nice discrimination, strong and accui'ate judgment : and for 
copiousness and beauty of diction was unrivalled. He is a 
real loss to the bar. No man dared to grapple with him 
without the most perfect preparation and the full possession 
of all his strength. Thus he kept the bar on the alert and 
every horse with his traces tight. It will be useful to re- 
member him, and in every case to imagine him the adversary 
with whom we have to cope. But, I assure you, I do not 
enjoy more rest because that comet has set. There was a 
pleasurable excitement in wrestling with him on full pre- 
paration. In my two last encounters with him 1 was well 
satisfied, and should never have been otherwise when en- 
tirely read}^ To draw his supremacy into question, any 
where, was honor enough for ambition as moderate as mine." 

These words were penned in an hour of solemn interest, 
over the closed cofiin and grave of his contemporary — and 
yet even here we have the rising of the same restless influ- 
ence, that the name and fame of Pinkney always produced 



120 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

on Wirt. Pinkney did die, in one sense, ojoportunely for his 
fame. He died in the full flush of honor, with his face front- 
ing duty; not ingloriously reposing upon his laurels, but in 
the act of making a desperate struggle for still higher fame 
and vaster renown. But he had not reached the acme of 
either his aspirations or his hopes. Had he lived, and his 
powers continued unimpaired by disease, his countrymen 
would have heard of him yet again on the floor of the Senate, 
and the forum. 

Mr, Wirt in this letter concedes, it is true, " that he was 
a great man ; on a set occasion the greatest at the Mary- 
land bar. He had not heard Emmet or Wells, and therefore 
he did not say the American bar. " He had heard Web- 
ster and Tazewell. This is high praise, and although not 
uttered until the orb that seemed to culminate so painfully 
on Mr. Wirt's vision had set, still I was disposed to say 
that it was praise gracefully spoken, when my eye rested 
upon the following passage: "In my two last encounters 
with him I was well satisfied, and should never have been 
otherwise, when entirely ready." No mention is made of 
him but in self-comparison. The fame of Pinkney (if these 
letters be a true index of the feelings of their author) was 
Wirt's disturbing ghost. Even when the great Lawyer and 
orator lay in the shroud, and criticism herself stood disarmed 
by his bier, that ghost could not be laid. Long after 
death had claimed its victim, it continued to haunt the 
memory and awaken unpleasant associations. In a letter to 
Judge Carr, February 9th, 1824 (Vol. II. p. 179), he thus 
wrote: 

" There was Pinkney, who was certainly a great advocate. 
He was never heard to complain of a failure. He has made 
some speeches which would have half killed me. On a great 
occasion in Annapolis I heard him speak for three days. Of 
the first day, two or three hours were in his best manner ; 
the rest of that day, and the whole of the following two. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 121 

were filled up with interminable prolixity of petty commen- 
tary upon one or two hundred cases. The court, bar and 
every one were tired to death. He went home and told — 
that lie liad made the greatest speech he had ever made in 
his life." 

From this judgment thus sweepingly made, with a sort 
of oracular infalhbility, if the occasion had been mentioned, 
I apprehend an appeal might be safely made to those who 
listened for three days to Mr, Pinkney. For, strange to say, 
he never spoke in Annapolis without admiring audiences, 
and the judges were always prompt to record their highest 
appreciation of his power. In a letter to Francis W. Gil- 
mer, April 2d, 1825, he writes further : 

" His fame had a magnitude by refraction, which would 
have been impaired by the publication of his speeches." 

The letters, to which I take exception on the score of 
propriety, because they are calculated to leave on the mind 
of the reader the idea that Pinkney was disgustingly over- 
bearing and jealous, while Wirt, his contemporary, was the 
very impersonation of modesty and retirement, are to be 
found on pages 80 Vol. II; 119, do. ; 176, do, I again re- 
peat, that I would most gladly have omitted this whole crit- 
icism on the work of Mr, Kennedy, if justice to the memory 
of William Pinkney would have allowed. But that was not 
possible. Thirty years had jiassed, since Mr. Pinkney was 
laid in the grave, when, needlessly and without benefit to the 
character of Wirt, his biographer gives publicity, not merely 
to Wirt's depreciation of his rival, but to grave reflections 
on his character. It will not do to say that these criticisms 
(both severe in their tone and unkind) were subsequently 
modified and changed. They were never so modified, as not 
to be tinctured by the most transparent self-exaltation ; and 
in their more objectionable features they w^ere not modified 
at all. The very name of Wirt gives importance to his opin- 
ions and statements ; and the superadded name of Kennedy 



122 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

clothes them with additional authority. And surely, as the 
biographer has not hesitated to give all the perpetuity he 
can to the strictures on Mr. Pinkney and mere ex parte rep- 
etitions of conversations — no friend of Mr. Pinkney, in an 
attempt to write his life and vindicate his character, can be 
blamed for subjecting the criticism to the touchstone of a 
calm and impartial review, and entering a protest against 
those ex parte statements. 

We must not be misunderstood. Mr. Kennedy and Mr. 
Wirt had a right to speak of Mr, Pinkney as they thought 
fit. I concede that right to the fullest extent. They were 
at liberty to dissect his mental calibre at pleasure. I com- 
plain not of the exercise of that right. But, having exer- 
cised it, and thereby submitted their own criticism to the 
world, they become in turn fair subjects of critical investi- 
gation, and no one has a right to complain if the result prove 
unsatisfactory or painful. 

But I deny that Mr. Kennedy had a right to publish 
one-sided statements, that were never published in the life- 
time of the person assailed. 

Nil de mortuis nisi bonwn, is a most admirable senti- 
ment. The world may deny our claim to greatness or se- 
verely dissect our intellectual powers, if it please. But no 
man has a right to touch the character, unless upon charges 
made in the lifetime, and confronted with the accused, or on 
statements that have been submitted to the touchstone of 
full and fair investigation. A deeper wrong could not well 
have been inflicted on the memory of the lamented Wirt, 
than this indiscreet and improper publication. I can only 
once more regret, that it did not occur to the discriminating 
judgment of the biographer, that the supremacy of either 
of those illustrious men could never be satisfactorily settled 
by the assertions of either ; and that he did not leave those 
letters in the privacy they were permitted to enjoy while 
Pinkney lived. They exliibit Mr. Wirt's chai-acter, which 



LITE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 123 

was in many respects worthy of the highest admiration, in a 
most unenviable light ; and evince a weakness of jealousy 
upon which it is truly painful to animadvert. 

JS". B. — Some of the points in this portion of my memoir 
were introduced into an article I forwarded to the Literary 
World, which was published some time ago. 



124 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 



PINKNEY, A STATESMAN. 

Mr. Pinkney's character in this aspect of it is not generally 
understood, and is not therefore properly appreciated. Be- 
fore I enter upon a review of his conduct in the different 
embassages he filled, I propose to inquire what it was, which 
entitled him to the appellation of a statesman ; in what 
school he was trained ; and what were the mental and moral 
elements which combined to qualify him for the difficult and 
delicate functions that are always involved in the manage- 
ment and control of public affau's. He was a true-hearted 
American patriot, a sincere and ardent lover of his country, 
deeply versed in the grand principles of our glorious consti- 
tution, and a thorough master of every portion of its intri- 
cate and beautiful mechanism. He had studied the system 
in the writings of its august founders. Accustomed from 
infancy to the war-cry of the Ke volution, his youtliful imagi- 
nation was fired with the thrilling associations of that giant 
struggle for freedom. He grew up in the meridian blaze of 
the period of '76. His profound knowledge of constitutional 
law enabled him, at a glance, to see how far any given meas- 
ure comported with the dignity and true glory of the coun- 
try, or put in jeopardy its substantial prosperity and success. 
He had the nicest conception of the powers of the General \ 
Government, and the separate jurisdiction and sovereignty of 
the States, and never for a moment lost sight of the boundary 
that divided the one from the other. No man was a truer, 
firmer, faster friend of the rights of the States, or viewed 
with a more jealous eye the least infringement of their clear 
constitutional prerogatives ; and yet no man possessed a more 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 125 

admirable nationality of soul. He was out and out an 
American in all his views and principles. His spirit was as 
large as his country, and wherever the stars and stripes 
floated, through the whole extent of the national domain, he 
could exultingly say, with a full consciousness of the glory 
of the sentiment, " This is my country all." He was above 
the influence and dominion of sectional prejudices. Though 
a Southerner by birth, his noble heart beat high with the 
broadest nationality. The Union he prized as the proud 
palladium of our liberties, the fruitfid source of all our past 
mercies, and the only hope of the still more glorious future. 
He saw in it the " seminal principle " of an unprecedented 
national exaltation, the more than germ of the most stupen- 
dous system of government the sun ever before shone upon. 
The union of independent and separate States — united in all 
that could give efficiency to the whole, while separate and 
sovereign in all that was essential to the largest desirable 
freedom of each — this union of equals for the purposes of 
mutual defence and glory, enlisted the purest sympathies of 
his soul, and called forth the mightiest strains of his elo- 
quence. In his whole political career, he aspu'cd to be the 
friend of the States in union ; and nothing less than this 
broad nationality satisfied his ideas of what a true devotion 
to State rights required at his hands. He saw nothing but 
advancement, unparalleled success and far-reaching, illimita- 
ble prosperity, for the States, so long as they continued in a 
whole-souled fealty and devotion to the Union ; while in the 
severance of that Union he saw nothing but the darkness 
and blackness of despotism, the most dismal and frightful 
chaos of anarchy and confusion. The following letter, writ- 
ten by Mr. Clay but a short time before his death, corrobo- 
rates all that I have here stated, and beautifully expresses 
the confidence and admiration of one, who remembered to 
applaud the day that witnessed Mr. Pinkney's triumphant 



126 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

^dndication of the constitution in the discussion of the Mis- 
souri question, 

"Havana, March 2mh, 1851. 

" My Dear Sir : — I request your acceptance of my 
thanks for the Chart and History of Hayti, which you have 
done me the favor to present to me. They relate to an 
island, distinguished by great vicissitudes of prosperity and 
adversity, and I shall take much pleasure in tracing them. 
It is greatly to be regretted that an island so full of rich 
resources could not be made more conducive to the supply 
of the commerce and the consumption of our species. 

" I beg your acceptance also of my acknowledgments 
for your friendly consideration of me, and for your kind es- 
timate (quite too high and flattering) of my public services. 
On the recent perilous occasions in our councils, it was a 
matter of great gratification and encouragement to have 
been perfectly assured that the navy, as well as the army, 
and the great mass of the people of the United States, were 
true and faithful to that Union, which is at once the bond, 
the security, and the glory of all. 

" Had William Pinkney been alive, your illustrious rela- 
tion, his eloquent voice would have been conspicuously and 
effectively heard in the defence and support of that Union. 

" With my best respects for your health, happiness, and 
prosperity, 

" I am, respectfully, 

" Your obedient servant, 

" Dr. Ninian Pinkney, H. Clay." 

" U. S. Navy." 

It w^as Mr. Pinkney's constant aim to be eminently just. 
He scorned the questionable expedients so often resorted to 
by petty politicians. Deeming honesty the crowning orna- 
ment of a di]3lomatist, and his country's honor the only safe 
guiding star of public policy, he pursued his object with 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 127 

bold independence and manly directness. Extraordinary 
quickness in comprehending the merits of a subject — extra- 
ordinary labor and patience of research in threading all its 
perplexing labyrinths, and extricating it from every thing 
extraneous or irrelevant — commanding and ready eloquence 
in enforcing his own deliberate and well-weighed conclusions 
— superiority to low and contemptible artifice — remarkable 
prudence and self-control in brushing away the " cobweb 
conceits " of shallow politicians — moral courage, the bravery 
of the heart, which is unappalled by difficulties and unawed 
in danger, and which always dares to assume responsibility 
and meet it — these all combined to make him a consummate 
statesman. 

I speak now of his powers in the abstract — powers which 
a Washington was the first to discover, and a Jefferson, 
Madison, and Monroe were as prompt to appreciate and 
reward. If Mr. Pinkney had never been tried in the active 
duties of statesmanship, we might have confidently argued 
his pre-eminent fitness for the work from those well-known 
attributes of his character. Having been tried, let us now 
inquire how they were developed and exhibited. Was the 
fruit worthy of the tree ? 

It will be remembered that his first appearance abroad 
was under the appointment of Washington, as commis- 
sioner on the part of the United States, under the 7th 
article of Jay's Treaty. The duties rendered under that 
appointment are recorded in history ; and it is not necessary 
to say more of them now, than that the result of his labors 
was the making award by the Board on the principles con- 
tended for by the American commissioners. 

President Jefferson invited him to assist Mr. Monroe in 
the pending negotiations with Great Britain. His accept- 
ance of this appointment subjected him to severe censure ; 
his motives were impugned, and his fidelity to his old polit- 
ical principles was called in question. I have shown, upon 



128 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

the authority of Mr. Jefferson's own letter, that the ap- 
pointment came to him without sohcitation, direct or indi- 
rect. The interests of the country seemed to call loudly 
for an extraordinary embassage, and the high character of 
Mr. Pinkney in England (which was the result of his former 
sojourn in that country) seemed to concur, with his known 
ability and prudence, in pointing him out as the very man 
for the position. Mr. Pinkney did not waver in devotion to 
his country's cause. In a si^irit of noble self-sacrifice he 
stepped forth and laid on the altar of his country his large 
experience and the reputation he had already won. He was 
not the man to skulk from duty in such a crisis for a mere 
personal and selfish consideration, where principle and honor 
were to be neither compromised nor offered up in sacrifice. 
In his letter to Mr. Cooke, of Baltimore, of the 5th October, 
1806, he thus eloquently and feelingly vindicates himself 
from those ungenerous imputations : 

MK. PINKNEY TO MR. COOKE. 

"London, ?>th October, 1S06. 

" My Dear Sir : — I am very much indebted to you for 
your truly kind letter of the 4th of August, which has just 
reached me. It contains the best proof in the world of your 
good opinion and regard. It sj)eaks to me with candor, 
and, at the same time that it betrays the partiality of a long- 
tried friendship, guards me against the disappointment to 
which a sanguine and credulous temper might expose me, 
and enables me to anticipate in season the misconceptions 
and calumnies which are preparing for me. This anticipa- 
tion is certainly wholesome ; but it is unpleasant notwith- 
standing. The language of reproach is new to me, and I 
fear I shall not learn to bear it with a good grace from a 
country which I have ardently loved and faithfully served 
with the best years of my life. The consciousness that I do 



LIFE OF WILLIAM TINKNET. 129 

not, and cannot deserve it, consoles me in one view, while it 
mortifies me in another. I am proud of the unqualified con- 
viction of my heart and understanding, that I am incapable 
of any thing that an honest man should blush to avow ; but 
it gives me pain to find that no purity of motive or integrity 
of conduct can afibixl shelter in this world from the vilest 
and most disgusting imputations. Our country is young, 
and ought to be generous and charitable, and I believe that 
the great bulk of our people are so. But I do not need to 
have my actions charitably interpreted. I ask only a just 
construction of them ; I care not how rigorous, if it be not 
malignant. It seemed natural to suppose, that putting 
former character out of the question, the circumstances under 
which I last came abroad would at least secure me from the 
suspicion of selfish views and time-serving policy; and I am, 
of course, surprised that a man can be found to infer, from 
my acceptance of the arduous trust in which I am now en- 
gaged, ' that I have deserted my principles and my friends, 
and pledged myself to support the party in power and their 
measures to every extent ?' AVhat principles, in God's name, 
and what friends have I deserted ? The plain matter of 
fact is thus : A great national crisis occurs, wliich requires, 
or is supposed to require, an extraordinary foreign mission. 
The President, whom I may be said to know only by char- 
acter, offers this important charge to me. I give up my 
profession. I surrender all my hopes of future fortune. I 
forego a second time, and /or ever, the expectation of placing 
my numerous and helpless family in a state of independence, 
and accept this anxious trust, wliich, instead of promising 
pecuniary emolument, is likely to bring with it a heavy 
pecuniary loss, and which, so far from promising to do me 
honor, puts in hazard the stock of reputation I have before 
acquired. Now what abandonment of principle is there in 
all this ? I am willing to admit that I may have acted im- 
providently, as regards myself and my children, and that I 
9 



130 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

may have overrated my capacity, and undertaken a task to 
which I am not competent. But I am quite sure that I 
have not deviated from the path of honor in which, with an 
approving conscience, I have walked from my boyish days. 
My appointment is known to have been as completely un- 
solicited as ever appointment was from the beginning of the 
world. It came to me wholly unsought. It is to the credit 
of the government that it did so. It came to me unclogged 
by any terms or conditions. They who talk of a pledge on 
my part, as the consideration of it, know that they insinuate 
a base and detestable falsehood. No such pledge, no pledge 
of any kind, was ever proposed to me. I was treated with 
honor, and delicacy, and confidence ; and I have a firm re- 
liance that I shall continue to be so treated. An attempt 
to treat me otherwise would drive me in a moment from 
office, as it would have prevented me from accepting it. As 
to this pledge, the slander is too gross to be believed. I 
have an intimate persuasion, founded upon a consciousness 
which I cannot mistake, of integrity without blemish, that 
no man would undertake to suggest to me so vile and infa- 
mous a compact as the price of public station. The accept- 
ance of my appointment may, indeed, imply a pledge ; and 
I am content that it shall be taken to be as large as honor 
will permit. In its utmost size, whatever that may be, I 
will faithfully redeem it, and should be ashamed to have it 
supposed that I could shrink from a duty so pressing and 
obvious. The foolish, and often hypocritical cant about 
apostacy and desertion of principles, shall not frighten me 
from the steady and manly course to which this duty directs 
me, I have never professed any principles with which my 
present situation, connected as it unquestionably is with the 
great interests of my countr}'^, is in the slightest degree in- 
consistent. I find nothing in the objects of it, in the means 
by which I am instructed to accomi)lish those objects, or in 
the measures of the government preparatory to the mission^, 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 131 

which I do not entirely approve, and have not uniformly ap- 
proved. 

" As to the friends I have deserted, who are they? I 
accepted my appointment, as far as I could ascertain, with 
the entire concurrence of my friends of both parties ; and I 
rejoice that I have friends of all parties. It was that flat- 
tering concurrence which encouraged me to hope that the 
anxiety inseparable from my undertaking would not be ag- 
gravated by unjust and unfeeling prejudices, and that I 
should have no difficulties to struggle with, but such as I 
should find here. The affection of many of my friends in- 
duced them to express their fears that, as an individual, I 
should suffer by the mission. But they did not conceal 
their approbation of my appointment, and did not intimate 
that any but prudential considerations ought to restrain me 
from accepting it. I have since been frequently consoled by 
the recollection of this, the most interesting period of my 
life." 

It will thus appear that Mr. Pinkney embarked in this 
great national mission, strong in his own integrity and with 
a bosom glowing with patriotic fervor and zeal. Let us now 
see what he did or attempted to do, in what spirit and with 
what ability he conducted his part of the negotiation — and 
in all that is here said, let it be understood, that so long as 
his illustrious colleague Mr. Monroe remained, he bore a most 
distinguished part. They moved in the matter like men 
above the influence of petty and blinding prejudices, with 
the broad feelings of American citizens in charge of Ameri- 
can rights. With what care he watched the progress of 
events, and with what solicitude he guarded the national 
honor, and vindicated the rights of the country, may be seen 
through the whole period of the negotiation ; but nowhere 
more conspicuously than in the letter he addressed to Pre- 
sident Madison as early as the 31st December, 1807. 

" The attitude which our government is now to take, 



132 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

will fix our destiny for ever ; and my trust is strong and con- 
fident that both will be worthy of the high name of our 
country, 

" In my public letters I have ventured to intimate my 
opinions as to the conduct which the crisis demands from 
us. You will excuse me, if in a private letter I speak with 
more freedom. 

" It will, I sincerely hope, be the solemn conviction of 
every man in America (as it is mine) that it has become im- 
possible, without the entire loss of our honor, and the sacrifice 
of every thing which it is our duty to j^rotect, to submit in 
the smallest degree to that extravagant system of maritime 
oppression (proceeding more from jealousy of our rising 
greatness than from npotives actually avowed) by which Great 
Britain every day exemplifies in various modes the favorite 
doctrine of her infatuated advisers, that Power and Rightful 
Dominion are equivalent terms, 

*'No man can deprecate war upon light and frivolous 
grounds more sincerely than I should do. But if war arises 
out of our resistance to this pernicious career of arrogance 
and selfishness, which, while it threatens our best interests 
with ruin, is even more insulting than it is injurious, and 
more humiliating than it is destructive, can it be doubted 
that our cause is a just one, or that we shall be able and 
willing to maintain it as a great and gallant nation ought 
to do ? 

" Our government has shown a laudable solicitude, for 
peace with all the world, and has acted wisely in its efibrts 
to preserve it. But the time has arrived when it seems to 
be certain that we must yield up all that we prize of repu- 
tation, of fortune, and of power, to the naval despotism of 
this country, or meet it with spirit and resolution ; if not 
by war, at least by some act of a strong and decisive char- 
acter. 

" The argument against resistance to British aggression, 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 133 

founded upon supposed danger from France, if Great Britain 
should be greatly weakened by that resistance, proves too 
much, and is otherwise false in fact and reasoning. 

" It may be admitted, however, that France is a subject 
of apprehension to America as well as to Europe ; but are 
we on that account to suffer with patience every wrong 
which Great Britain, stimulated by the jealousy of her mer- 
chants, or the avarice of her Navy, or the pride of con- 
scious power, may inflict upon us? Such a state of abject 
slavery to our peers, such a tame surrender of our rights, as 
the price of British protection against possible and contingent 
peril, would be a thousand times more degrading than if we 
were now in the maturity of our years to return openly to the 
dependence of our colonial infancy upon the guardianship of 
the parent country. If we once listen to this base and pu- 
sillanimous suggestion, we have passed under the yoke and 
are no longer a nation of freemen ; we shall not only be de- 
spised and trampled upon by all the world, but, what is of 
infinitely more importance, we shall despise ourselves — 
France will justly become our irreconcilable enemy, and 
Great Britain will only be encouraged and enabled to stab 
to the heart the prosperity which she envies, and the power 
which she begins to dread. By a different course, that 
which suits with the manly character and the great resources 
of the American peoj)le, we shall show that we rely on our- 
selves for protection. We shall maintain, with the gallantry 
and firmness which have heretofore characterized us, our 
station among the powers of the earth. We shall check, 
while there is yet time, the usurpation of Great Britain, 
without destroying her salutary strength." 

This noble letter breathes a lofty confidence in the integ- 
rity of his country's cause. It repudiates indignantly the 
idea of any compromise of her rights, and points out and 
severely rebukes the arrogance and presumption of England's 
claims upon the high seas, and sounds the tocsin of war 



134 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

sooner than submit to a surrender of our rights, by a timid 
faltering poHcy, or a base compromise. Mark the date of 
this letter, at the same time you analyze its tone and temper, 
and you will see that none saw more clearly or resented more 
eloquently the odiousness of the decrees in council than Mr. 
Pinkney, or availed themselves of an earlier opportunity in 
giving full and free expression to their views and feelings. 
Speaking to the constitutional head of this government, he 
spoke with the bold independence of an American citizen in 
charge of American rights. 

In this mission he was unsuccessful. Why ? Not be- 
cause he had failed to exhaust both argument and appeal in 
his efforts to awaken a sense of justice and true enlightened 
policy in the bosom of those, whose counsels guided Eng- 
land in that eventful day. Not because he had waxed neg- 
ligent in making prompt and manly protest against her mon- 
strous aggressions, and tardy and insulting slowness to make 
amends for the wrongs perpetrated. 

True it is, he was under injunction not to jeopard the 
peace of the couijtries, by precipitate action or the too free 
expression of his own excited and wounded pride. Not less 
true it is that he did restrain, with admirable self-control, 
his indignation, while compelled to witness aggressions re- 
peated without redress, and diplomatic finesse pushed almost 
to the verge of open indignity. He did it because it was 
the will of his government it should be done, not because 
the peace of the world made it desirable that endurance 
should be carried to the farthest possible point. 

The conduct pursued by our ministers during that criti- 
cal and most difficult negotiation, beautifully contrasts with 
that pursued by the English ministry and their deputed 
agents. The English journaHsts of that era were compelled, 
in the hour of calm review and cool investigation, to de- 
nounce in tones of indignant rebuke the unmanly and disin- 
genuous poHcy of a Canning and a Wellesley ; and seemed to 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 135 

amuse themselves at our cost, for what they supposed was 
the weak creduUty and want of penetration exhibited by 
those, who wore then in charge of American rights at the 
court of St. James. A dispassionate examination of the 
subjoined correspondence will show that they were as correct 
in the former opinion, as they were egregiously mistaken in 
the latter. Mr. Pinkney before he embarked on the mission 
had dissected England's policy with the skill of a master, and 
exposed her rapacious and grasping ambition and wanton 
infraction of the law of nations in her aggressions on the free- 
dom of the seas, with resistless eloquence and power of ar- 
gument. He entered on the mission with open eyes and 
judgment thoroughly informed. He needed no one to ad- 
monish him or put him on his guard. In Mr. Monroe, he 
found a clear-headed, enlightened, experienced American 
statesman, in every respect equal to the high trust confided to 
him. And in all the conferences they had with the British 
neootiators did he and Mr. Monroe set forth the claims of 
the United States, and repel the views and pretensions of 
England. In their frequent interviews with Lords Holland 
and Auckland, they displayed not less abihty than they did 
zeal and moderation in the assertion of our national honor 
and rights, and did all that human eloquence could do to se- 
cure a full and satisfactory adjustment of all the points in 
controversy. On 31st Dec, 1806, they concluded a treaty. 
As that treaty has been the subject of much abuse, I beg 
leave to insert a few passages from a letter of Mr. Monroe, 
dated February 28th, 1808, written in its defence. 

" The idea (says Mr. Monroe) entertained by the pub- 
lic is, that the rights of the United States were abandoned 
by the American commissioners in the late negotiation, and 
that their seamen were left by tacit acquiescence, if not by 
formal renunciation, to depend for their safety on the mercy 
of the British cruisers. I have on the contrary always be- 
lieved and still do believe that the ground on which that in- 



136 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 

terest was placed by the paper of the British commissioners, 
of Nov. 8th, 1806, and the explanations which accompanied 
it, was both honorable and advantageous to the United States ; 
that it contained a concession in their favor on the part of 
Great Britain on the great principle in contestation never be- 
fore made by a formal and obligatory act of the government, 
which was higldy favorable to their interest ; and that it 
also imposed on her the obligation to conform her practice 
mider it, till a more complete arrangement should be con- 
cluded, to the just claims of the United States." 

Again. " It is evident that the rights of the United 
States were expressly to be reserved and not abandoned, as 
has been most erroneously supposed ; that the negotiation 
on the subject of impressment was to be postponed for a 
limited time, and for a special object only, and to be revived 
as soon as that object was accomplished ; and in the interim 
that the practice of impressment was to correspond essen- 
tially with the views and interests of the United States." 
— State Paper, vol. 6, page 421. 

The whole of this long letter is worthy of a perusal, and 
less than the whole cannot well exhibit the ground upon which 
the defence of that treaty is based. This treaty Mr. Jeffer- 
son refused to ratify. He did not so much as consult the 
Senate upon it ; but took upon himself the sole responsibility 
of its rejection. In Hildreth's History of the United States, 
Yol. v., p. Q5Q, &c., its wisdom, sound policy and propriety 
the most triumphantly vindicated. " The British negotia- 
tors declared that although the ministry could not venture to 
give up by formal treaty the right of impressment on the 
high seas, yet that special instructions should be given and 
enforced for the observance of the greatest caution against 
subjecting any American born citizen to molestation or in- 
jury, and that in case of any such injury, upon representa- 
tion of it, the promptest redress should be afforded. These 
assurances were reduced to writing, suggesting at the same 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 137 

time, that while hotU imrties thus reserved these rigiits, this 
stipulation might ansiver temporarily. * * '•'•■ Having 
obtained every concession on the subject of impressment 
short of a renunciation by the British government of the 
claim of right to take British subjects out of American 
vessels — a claim going back to an indefinite antiquity, 
strongly supported by the national feeling, and thought at 
the present crisis of European affairs essential to the na- 
tional safety — and having thus placed the United States as 
to this question on ground, short indeed of what justice de- 
manded and perhaps of their rights, but the best, which at 
present there was the shghtest prospect of obtaining ; under 
these circumstances, imitating the example of Jay and of 
the commission to France in 1799, Monroe and Pinkney did 
not deem it consistent either with common prudence or com- 
mon sense to relinquish the advantage thus secured, and along 
with it other advantages in prospect, and from a too strict 
adherence to instructions to leave the country, by breaking 
up the negotiation, exposed to vast maritime losses, to the con- 
tinuance and aggravation of present misunderstandings, and 
to imminent risk of war." This is the verdict passed by 
faithful and impartial history upon that important transac- 
tion. And after the letter of Monroe, and the satisfactoiy 
exposition of Hildreth, I feel that I can safely intrust it to 
the judgment of posterity. True it is, it did leave the ques- 
tion of impressment unsettled. But what became of that 
question, and how does it stand at the present moment ? It 
did not surrender the right. It yielded up nothing. It only 
postponed to future negotiation the adjustment, securing in 
the meanwhile the most important and desirable modification 
of its use, in its oppressive bearing upon our interests. Mr. 
Pinkney and Mr. Monroe were as deeply sensible that the 
treaty did not secure all that could be desired or reasonably 
or equitably asked, as Mr. Jefferson or its bitterest assailant. 
They were called upon to decide between two things, neither 



13$ LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

of which were to be desired. They would have spurned, as 
indignantly as any, a dishonorable adjustment of our diffi- 
culties with England. They felt the injustice of the im- 
pressment as practised by her, and would never have con- 
sented to a tame surrender of our earnest and decisive pro- 
test against that right, as a violation of the law of nations 
too flagrant to be justified by any supposed exigencies of na- 
tional defence, that could be pleaded in its extenuation. They 
were willing, upon the positive assurance of the British gov- 
ernment previously given, that it should be used in essential 
correspondence with the views of the United States, to leave 
it among the questions not settled ; not because they were 
disposed to submit to the practice, but solely, because they 
thought the permitting it to pass by for the present prefera- 
ble to war, at a time when we were so little prepared to en- 
counter it. War came at last, when negotiation failed, and 
it was hailed with both pride and pleasure by Mr. Pinkney, 
because the national honor required it, and the patience and 
forbearance of negotiation had j^roved inoperative to wTing 
from England the proper redress for wrongs perpetrated. It 
was a war that covered our gallant little Navy with deathless 
glory, and proved to the world that England was no longer 
mistress of the seas. A new power was upon that mighty 
element, capable of maintaining its flag untarnished, whose 
motto was " Don't give up the ship." 

What became of Mr. Jefferson's sine qua non ? without 
which he refused to ratify this treaty. Was the right of 
impressment abandoned or surrendered by the treaty that 
actually followed the war ? It is as yet among the things 
not given up. It is a right, unexercised I grant, and one 
that will never again be exercised, as far as our flag is con- 
cerned. But the only treaty that reduced it to a mere 
barren abstract claim of right was the thunder of our little 
navy on the seas. Neither Mr. Monroe nor Mr. Pinkney 
were fully convinced that it would be otherwise settled, 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 139 

however miicli they may have hoped and wished that justice 
and a sense of right would ultimately prevail in the British 
councils ; and, without its settlement, neither of them would 
or could have rested satisfied. They did the best they could 
in the then state of public affairs, and, in no proper sense 
of the word, did they forget what was due to the American 
flag, or the brave tars that bore it so gallantly on the seas. 
They were not willing to throw away the chances of an 
honorable peace by rashness or inconsideration. The post- 
ponement for a while of the right of impressment, they 
thought, would result in no serious injury to the United 
States, after the explicit acknowledgment that, until settled, 
it would be used in accordance with our views of interest. 
I ^hink, with no impeachment of Mr. Jefferson, that Pink- 
ney and Monroe acted the wiser part. 

It is delightful, in recalling, for the vindication of Mr. 
Pinkney's character, the odious policy that was pursued by 
Great Britain towards the United States prior to the war 
of 1812, to reflect that these two great countries are now 
bound to each other by the strongest ties of interest and of 
amity, which, it is to be hoped, for the sake of the world, 
neither of them may be ever tempted to forget or snap 
asunder. Speaking the same language, avowedly attached 
to the same great principles of political freedom, eminently 
commercial in their spirit and destiny, and thereby quaHfied 
to become leaders in the diffusion of light and knowledge 
the world over, they may, with exulting pride, forget that 
old feuds ever existed, and henceforth live to honor and 
respect each other, and work in concert for the welfare of 
the nations. We have an interest and a home in the land 
of Shakspeare and of Milton. We love the old cathedrals 
and good old church of England. We study the decisions 
of her noble and enlightened courts, and claim a copartner- 
ship in her splendid Uterature and stupendous national 
glory. And we flatter ourselves that the day has come 



140 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

when the mother may justly pride herself on the daughter, 
and feel that we are more than the recipients of her light 
and lustre. An Englishman may now look upon the land 
of Washington, and bless Grod that the name and fame of 
England are renewed in the name and fame of the United 
States, The glory of the past of either will not compare 
with their future, if peace prevail in their mutual councils, 
and their flags wave over seas covered by their mutual com- 
merce in beauteous harmony. May their towering strength 
know of no competition but that of friendly rivalry. May 
their race of glory be henceforth and for ever in parallel 
lines, whose interests and true national exaltation manifestly 
lie in one and the same direction. 

It becomes now my painful duty in this connection 'to 
examine the statements of a work, which was widely circu- 
lated at the time it was issued, entitled "The Memoirs of 
Jefferson," This work was published in 1809. Its author- 
ship was never, that I know of, avowed. It contains very 
severe and acrimonious animadversions upon the character 
and conduct of Mr. Pinkney. It charges him with gross 
duplicity and falsehood. The wi-iter does not mince his 
words. Destitute of the caution that is usually observed 
by those who delight in detraction, he is prodigal of his 
facts in proof, and deals with astounding freedom with dates, 
those honest tell-tales against such as use them carelessly. 
I propose to inquire into the nature of the charges made, 
and the proofs adduced, reaffirming that noble sentiment 
which this writer had the rashness to indorse, " that if a 
history Avants truth, it wants every thing that can recom- 
mend it ; " a sentiment which is more beautifully expressed 
by Cicero : " Historia est testis temporum, lux veritatis, 
vita memoriee, magistra vitee, nuntia vetustatis." I shaU 
permit him to speak for himself, judge him by his own words, 
and then submit his so-called statements to the touchstone 
of stubborn facts. The author thus writes : 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 141 

" With this view, Mr. Pinkney was sent to the Court of 
St. James, armed, one hand with a falsehood, and the other 
with an impudent absurdity." — Vol. II., p. 392. 

Again : " On the 10th of October, Mr. Pinkney sent an 
answer to Mr. Canning's letter, in which an amount of more 
than twenty pages of very large sized octavo, in print, was 
occupie^l in a vain effort to justify the negotiation from the 
charge of having failed from his neglecting to make an offer 
from government to repeal the embargo ; but in which, 
when connected and compared \\'ith other parts of the cor- 
respondence respecting the negotiation, he aiDpeared mani- 
festly guilty of mistakes or misrepresentations. 

" On our first conference (said he to Mr. Canning) I told 
you explicitly, that the substance of what I suggested (viz. 
that the British orders being repealed, we .would suspend 
the embargo) was from my government ; but the manner 
of conducting and illustrating it was all my own. I even 
repeated to you the ivords of my instructions, as they were 
upon my memory. After this, however doubtful a person 
might be as -to the assertion of Mr. Pinkney that he had 
told Mr. Canning explicitly, that the substance of his sug- 
gestion was from his government, he would have a right, at 
least, to conclude, that the written authority on which Mr. 
Pinkney so confidentially reUed, and the words of which he 
said he had repeated to Mr. Canning, did at least contain the 
words to bear him out. When those very instructions, how- 
ever, come to be inspected, they are found not to contain one 
single word of that import ; but, on the contrary, directions to 
the contrary. For his instructions on this head, Mr. Pink- 
ney, it seems, was referred by the Secretary of State (Mr. 
Madison) to his (Mr. Madison's) answer to Mr. Erskine, on 
the subject of the British orders in council ; and the words 
tliere are as follows : ' The United States are well warranted 
in looking for a speedy revocation of a system which is every 
day augmenting the mass of injury for which the United 



142 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

States have the best claims to redress ?\ And then, contin- 
ues Mr. Madison to Mr. Pinkney himself, 'still it is to be 
understood, that loMle the insidt offered in the attack on the 
Chesapeake remains unexpiated, you are not to pledge or 
commit your government, to consider a recall of the orders in 
council as a ground on tvhich a removal of the existing re- 
strictions on the commerce of the U^iited States tvitk Great 
Britain may be justly exjyected.' Here, then, is a positive 
order not to give the British government reason so much as 
to expect that the embargo should be repealed, even though 
the orders in council should be rescinded. 

'" Thus, Mr. Pinkney stands convicted of misrepresenta- 
tion by the very instructions from which he pretended to have 
repeated the words to substantiate the truth of his assertion. 
No such words, were in it ; but words directly the reverse ; 
so that if he had, as he asserted he did, explicitly told Mr. 
Canning that the substance of his suggestions, respecting 
the repeal of the embargo, came from his government, he 
was guilty of misrepresentation; and if he did make such a 
proposal, he was no less guilty of a breach of the orders of 
his government, which forbade him to give any such expecta- 
tion. What makes the matter worse was that Mr. Pinkney 
himself, in his letters to Mr. Madison, recognized the policy ; 
— in one of the month of May, he tells him that he had 
taken care to make no proposal. There is still stronger evi- 
dence of Mr. Pinkney's conviction, that he was not author- 
ized by his government to offer the repeal of the embargo ; 
for on the 5th of June he wrote another letter, in which he 
informed Mr. Madison that he was to have an interview with 
Mr. Canning in a few days, that he would then press the 
suggestion of repealing the embargo law. ' But,' adds this 
worthy representative of his honest and honorable cabinet, '1 
shall, for obvious reasons, do this informally, as my own 
act.' And further on in the same letter, he says, ' You may 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 148 

be assured that I will not commit our (jovernment hy any 
thing I may do or say.' 

" From the whole of this, it is evident that Mr. Pinkney 
not only entered into the views of his employers to cajole 
the British minister, bnt even debased himself by palpable 
falsehood, to cover them from the effects of that indignation 
which their country must necessarily feel, on finding that, 
while they affected to negotiate, they only meant to insult 
and betray." 

Let us now look at the charge and the proof Is it tme, 
or is it false ? It is charged that Mr. Pinkney exceeded his 
instructions, and endeavored to deceive Mr. Canning by falsely 
quoting from them. To substantiate the charge and convict 
Mr. Pinkney of a palpable disobedience of the orders of his 
government and the perpetration of a gross fraud on Mr. 
Canning, this writer affirms that Mr. Pinkney's instructions 
were contained in the answer of Mr. Madison to Mr. Erskine, 
which made the atonement for the insult offered in the at- 
tack on the Chesapeake a sine qua non, without which no 
expectation of the suspension of the embargo was to be en- 
couraged, even though the decrees in council should be re- 
scinded. By a reference to the 7th vol. of State Papers, 
p. 28, it will be seen, that the letter of Mr, Madison to 
Mr. Pinkney, dated April 4th, 1808, contained those in- 
structions. The atonement for the insult offered in the at- 
tack on the Chesapeake was made in that letter the sine 
qua non. Thus far the writer states the truth. The letter 
of Mr. Pinkney to Mr. Canning, dated October 10th, 1808, 
is adduced in evidence. In it he affirms, that in their first 
interview he had notified Mr. Canning of the intention of 
our government to suspend the embargo in case the orders 
in council were repealed, without any reference to the affair 
of the Chesapeake. And that this notification was made in 
obedience to the instructions he had received from gov- 
.ernment. This also is truly stated. These instructions, 



144 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

this author maintains, do not bear Mr. Pinkney out. They 
neither sustain him in the assurance given to Mr. Canning, 
nor the assertion that in giving that assurance he quoted 
from them correctly. " No such words as Mr. Pinkney pre- 
tended to have repeated, were in his letter of instructions, 
but words directly the reverse." So that "if he had, as 
he asserted he did, expressly told Mr. Canning that the 
substance of his suggestions respecting the suspension of 
the embargo came from his government, he was guilty of 
misrepresentation ; and if he did make the proposal, he 
was not less guilty of a breach of the orders of his govern- 
ment, which forbade him to give any such expectation." 

This seems to be a very formidable impeachment. It 
looks very like the truth. Such a minute and scathing 
analysis of facts and dates, would seem to indicate a con- 
scious rectitude of purpose and a deep conviction of exact- 
ness. Before I proceed farther in the investigation, I beg 
leave to call attention to another fact contained in this letter 
of October 10 (concerning which this author is unaccounta- 
bly silent), because it is material to the issue between us ; 
and that is, that this fii'st interview was held on the 29th of 
June. 

Now I deny that the letter of the 4th of April or the 
instructions contained in it, which this author quotes with 
so much seeming exultation, constituted the authority on 
wMcli Mr. Pinkney made his overture in the intei'vieio of 
Jime 29th ; and 1 have the proof to sustain the denial. In 
a letter, dated April 30th, which may be found in Vol. 
VII, State Papers, p. 32, Mr. Madison thus wi'ote to Mr. 
Pinkney : 

" In order to entitle the British government to a discon- 
tinuance of the embargo, as it applies to Grreat Britain, it 
is evident that all its decrees as well those of January, 
1807, as of November, 1807, ought to be rescinded as they 
apply to the United States, &c. Should the British govern- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 145 

ment take this course you may authorize an expectation, thai 
the President will loithin a reasonable time give effect to the 
authority vested in him on the subject of the embargo laivs." 
This letter was received anterior to the interview of the 29th 
of June, and subsequent to the letter of April the 4th. It 
was intended to control the overture made by Mr. Pinkney, 
and it did control it. For in the letter of Mr, Pinkney to 
Mr. Madison, dated August 4th, he speaks of tliis very let- 
ter of instructions of April 30th, as having been received by 
him previously to that interview, and used on that occasion. 
Mr. Pinkney tells Mr. Madison, from whom his instructions 
were received, and to whom he reported liis official conduct, 
that he made his proposal, which is so summarily condemned 
by this writer as exceeding his instructions, on the express 
authority of this letter of the 30th of April. See State 
Papers, Vol. VII. p. 43. 

What now becomes of the assertion that no such words 
as Mr. Pinkney stated were contained in his instructions, 
were to be found in them ? And what must be said of an 
author, who confounds instructions contained in a letter of 
one date with those of another, and in his eager partisan 
zeal to find topics of bitter accusation never chances to stum- 
ble upon letters, that are in almost immediate juxtaposition, 
in wliich the party accused states what he had done, and 
why he had done it. There was a violation of orders of 
government in the interview of June 29 th, says this author; 
and a contemptible attempt at fraud, inasmuch as the in- 
structions of April 4th explicitly required the settlement of 
the affair of the Chesapeake as the sine qua non. There 
was no violation of the orders of government and no attempt 
at the perpetration of a fraud, says truthful history, inas- 
much as the instructions which Mr. Pinkney expressly de- 
clared he followed in that interview are contained in the 
letter of April the 30th, though not in that of April the 4th, 
and are rightly quoted. • 

10 



146 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

The proof upon which this author rested his grave alle- 
gation, is supposed by him to be strengthened by the fact^ 
that in two letters (one of May, the other of the 5th of June) 
Mr. Pinkney professes his intention to act in accordance with 
the instructions of April the 4th, But this, so far from af- 
fording proof that Mr. Pinkney exceeded his instructions, 
proves the very reverse. It shows conclusively that he ad- 
hered most rigidly to them, for up to June 5th there is de- 
monstrative evidence that the letter of the 30th of April 
had not been received. In that very letter of June 5th, 
which this author had the audacity to quote, Mr. Pinkney 
acknowledges the receipt of the letter of April 4th. Of 
course that of April the 30th could not have been received. 
This letter of April 4th was the only one acted upon up to 
the 5 th of June, and for the best of all reasons, because it 
was the only one received at that time. The letter of April 
the 30th, which totally changed the ground and nature of 
the instructions, was received however before the interview 
of June the 29th, as Mr. Pinkney declares in his letter of 
August the 4th. 

All these letters were accessible to this anonymous author, 
and examined by him. It is therefore difficult to conceive 
of the disingenuousness and want of candor, that pervade his 
work. When a man so far forgets himself and his own sense 
of honor and of right, as to hurl accusations of the most of- 
fensive kind against the official conduct of another ; and 
stands convicted, by the very authorities he adduces, of the 
grossest ignorance or the most glaring misrepresentations, he 
entitles himself to but little mercy. His ignorance may 
shield him from the severer condemnation, but it cannot save 
his book from the infamy assigned to it by his own indorse- 
ment of the sentence, " that if a history wants truth it wants 
every thing that can recommend it." How emphatic are 
the words of Johnson, " There is such a thing as mistaking 
the venom of the shaft for the vigor of the bow. It is not 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 147 

hard to be sarcastic in a mask. If we leave such a writer 
only his merits, where will be his praise ?" 

Mr. Pinkney was not insensible to the fetters that re- 
strained him in his correspondence with Canning. He was 
hampered by the exceeding difficulties of his position. Had 
he been free to address Mr. Canning, as at a subsequent 
period he did Lord Wellesley, in the strain his o^vn feelings 
dictated, he would have shown that in sarcasm he was not 
inferior to that eminent statesman, as he had proved himself 
to be more than his equal in power of argument and frank- 
ness of disposition. If ever honor and a scrupulous conscien- 
tiousness adorned the diplomatic conduct of any minister, they 
did that of the gentleman thus bitterly assailed. I exult- 
ingly point to the correspondence hereunto annexed, and 
am satisfied that it will be found upon examination to be 
not less conspicuous for high, honorable, manly feeling, than 
pre-eminent ability. It will bear a favorable comparison 
with that of any other period of the republic marked by 
equal hazard, delicacy and difficulty. He uniformly main- 
tained that the embargo was "a measure of wise and 
peaceful precaution, adopted under the view of reasonably 
anticipated peril." He was a profound admirer and consist- 
ent supporter of the embargo and the non-importation act ; 
and without entering upon the discussion of its merits or de- 
mands, I beg leave to introduce to the public for the first 
time an article of singular force and ability found among the 
few sur\aving papers of Mr. Pinkney. It was his habit to 
throw off hastily his views of such important measures, and 
then throw them aside. Those who are accustomed to re- 
view our past history, will remember that those measures 
produced at the time a profound sensation in the country. 
The embargo excited the Eastern States to a most fearful 
degree, and the non-importation act was not less bitterly op- 
posed. The embargo was the policy of Jefferson's adminis- 
tration, and was laid on the 23d of December, 1807. Its 



148 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

character to respect and its title to support, as the wisest 
measure that could at that time be adopted, it is not my 
province to discuss. Suffice it to say, that it was repealed 
on the 1st of March, 1809, and that a sort of substitute for 
it was found in the non-intercourse act. Mr. Pinkney thus 
wrote : 

"Will that miserable shadow of a system, called the 
non-intercourse act, sink even below its own inherent weak- 
ness, as we know it will, by the dislike of many and the in- 
difference of aU, be such an instrument as our government 
ought to wield against the most alarming and pernicious of 
all the pretensions of a jealous and encroacliing power — pre- 
tensions which, if once allowed to gain the sanction of pre- 
cedent, can only be beaten down by force ? 

" The embargo was a noble and magnificent effort, suited 
to the extraordinary occasion by which it was suggested, 
and adequate if persevered in to all its purposes. That great 
measure being abandoned, no half-way scheme, of the same 
family, can ever hope to stand in its place, and be ef- 
fectual. 

" The non-intercourse act may furnish incentives to com- 
mercial frauds and fuel to faction — ^it may render govern- 
ment odious by its penalties, and its cause contemptible by 
its feebleness — it may display anger without spirit, and a 
more than Christian patience under wrongs which it is for- 
ward to proclaim — it may combine a practical submission to 
injury and insult, with that show and bustle of resentment 
which produces nearly all the losses and more than the pos- 
sible disgraces of war without its glory or its graces. It may 
do all this — but the United States can never stand behind 
so mean a contrivance and affect to caU it resistance, where 
a single power is engaged in systematic attempts to push 
others from the seas and to cover them with dishonor. 

" Nothing seems to me to be more clear, than that such a 
measure does just enough to demonstrate that we ought to do 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 149 

more. It is at once a Manifesto — and a Capitulation, It 
struts at the same time that it truckles, and it is so contrived 
that what it says is the severest censure upon the nothing 
which it does. 

" Every reproach which was falsely cast upon the embargo 
belongs by indisputable title to this, its crippled and bastard 
progeny. While France and England, agreeing in nothing 
else, were in conspiracy to persecute our commerce and vio- 
late om* neutral rights, the embargo was not only our natural, 
but our only resource. It promised to be successful when 
war j)romised nothing but ruin — and it would have been 
successful, but that time and prosperity had alloyed our vir- 
tue and unfitted us for such a trial. If we had elected war, 
we must have thrown down the gauntlet in a paroxysm of 
romantic courage to both England and France ; but it was 
our business to perceive, and our government did perceive, that 
the combination of those two gigantic powers in the work 
of our oppression, made any experiment for reconciling peace 
with resistance not only prudent but honorable. Any 
other measure than the embargo would, in such circum- 
stances, have been madness or cowardice. For no others were 
in our choice but war with both aggressors, or submission to 
both ; with the certainty too, that that submission would in 
its progress either lead to war, or to a state of abject de- 
gradation," 

The letter of President Jefferson, dated August 5th, 1809, 
expressive of his satisfaction in noting both the matter and 
manner with which Mr. Pinkney discharged his public duties; 
and the unwilUngness of Mr. Madison to allow him to return 
to the United States, at his own urgent request, are his 
highest vindication. 

Success does not always prove the measure of ability and 
skill employed in negotiation, or the merit of the claims to 
be adjudicated. England was at that time the proud mis- 
tress of the seas. Her sway on that mighty element was 



150 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

undisputed. She was battling with the powers of France in 
a death struggle. She was pushing forward her enterprising 
commerce with jealous activity on every sea ; and she looked 
with evident suspicion and displeasure on our rising maritime 
power. It was with England thus circumstanced in the full 
flush of her nautical skill and prowess, " whose drum beat 
was echoed " wherever the wail of ocean was heard, that Mr. 
Pinkney had to treat ; and the question was one which 
touched at once her pride and vaunted supj-emacy. His 
failure does him no discredit as a statesman. He pursued 
his work with a steadiness, industry, firmness and ability, 
always equal to the occasion, and never allowed himself to 
be seduced into chicanery or duplicity by the hopes of ulterior 
ends. He was above intrigue, and in the firm belief that 
honesty is the only becoming national policy, he stood forth 
the plain honest Kepublican, in the midst of the intrigues 
of courts, and the hollow professions of those who repre- 
sented them. 

None knew better than he how to scathe and rebuke op- 
pression and wrong, or could see more thoroughly through 
the craftiness, that sometimes disfigures the diplomatic con- 
duct of a Canning and Wellesley. He bore much for his 
country's sake, and the love of peace ; for he was emphatic- 
ally a man of peace. He took no pleasure in sounding tlie 
tocsin of war. But still the letter of December 31st, 1807, 
and the whole of his diplomatic correspondence show, that 
he loved not peace, when it called for the sacrifice of national 
honor and consistency. He no sooner saw that negotiation 
must prove fruitless, and that English pride and arrogance 
must be humbled before justice could be secured, than he 
returned, and aroused his countrymen to war. 

There was a beautiful combination of urbanity and firm- 
ness, courtesy and independence, a patient spirit of endur- 
ance, and keen instinctive repugnance to what was wrong, 
in the political character of Mr. Pinkney. So far as I know, 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. * 151 

there is not one expression which need cause the most fas- 
tidious of bis countrymen to blush, or give occasion to the 
most unrelenting of his opponents to aflford even a momen- 
tary exultation, 

Mr. Pinkney's great abilities, and unparalleled patience 
of investigation, and keen discrimination of character, and 
thorough comprehension of all the great questions that at 
that time agitated and disturbed the world, are not in my 
opinion to be put in comparison with his love of tratli and 
justice. If intrigue, the ability to prosecute ends in them- 
selves doubtful or manifestly wrong by means not less doubtful 
and immoral, be constituents in the character of a states- 
man ; then Mr. Piukney was no statesman. He scorned to 
gain an end by tortuous means ; and would have retired in- 
stantly, in disgust, from a pubhc service, whose policy he 
did not believe to be just and upright. His moral percep- 
tions were most delicately attuned, and there pervades his 
whole foreign correspondence, Hke a thread of silver hue, a 
most admirable love of justice and abhorrence of wrong. 
Let the correspondence speak for itself, and I am silent. 
Were a witness, above and beyond his correspondence, neces- 
sary to enforce this impression of his character upon the 
heart of his countrymen, we have it. It was a British states- 
man of distinction who said of him in Parliament, " that he 
was a man of sound sense and judgment, of an able and 
astute mind, and of highest reputation ; — that he had con- 
ducted himself during his residence in the country in a man- 
ner most honorable to himself and likely to benefit both 
nations — at all times taking the most impartial views of the 
different interests concerned, his conduct, though firm, had 
been most concihatory. Firm to his purpose, and able to 
elucidate the subjects under discussion, he had never fiiilcd 
in time, punctuality, or mode of procedure in his mission." — 
Olive Branchy p. 356. 

This voluntary and noble tribute from a distinguished 



152 * LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

stranger, expressed with a nervous comprehensiveness of 
style and a boldness of panegyric, that cannot but be ad- 
mired, found an eloquent echo in the following beautiful tri- 
bute from the pen of Judge Story. The accomplished 
American jurist speaks of him as " one who, while abroad, 
honored his country by an unparalleled display of diplo- 
matic science; and on his return illuminated the halls of jus- 
tice with an eloquence of argument and depth of learned 
research that have not been exceeded in our day," — Story 
(Vol. I. 276). 

A single glance into the Neapolitan mission — Mr, Pink- 
ney's management of affairs on that occasion has been the topic 
of severe criticism in a high quarter. A writer in the North 
American (Vol. XXI. p. 272), in a quite elaborate review, 
seems to think that he was caught Hke a hon in the toils of 
a wily Neapolitan functionary; and is disposed to condemn 
him for the exhibition of a weak credulity, that was but too 
easily snared by the crafty and designing. But what are 
the facts in the case, and how do they sustain this criticism.? 
I greatly mistake the force of the evidence, if it does not 
prove, not want of capacity or deficiency of shrewdness in the 
minister, but want of discernment in the reviewer. 

The object of Mr. Pinkney's mission to Naples was, to 
obtain indemnity for losses sustained by the illegal seizure 
and confiscation of property belonging to our citizens by the 
Neapolitan government. 

He was instructed to manifest a spirit of concihation 
towards the government of Naples. 

That Mr. Pinkney acted with great promptitude, se- 
cured an early audience, and followed it up with marked 
decision and firmness, the correspondence conclusively proves. 
He set forth at once, in a letter of signal ability, published 
in this memoir, the demands and expectations of our gov- 
ernment. The discussion, though temperate and respectful, 
is perfectly conclusive. It leaves no ground for cavil ; no 



LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNEY. 153 

room for dispute. It must rank, in the estimation of all 
disinterested and impartial judges, as one of the most lucid 
and masterly expositions of the subject in controversy that 
ever emanated from a representative of our glorious Union 
abroad. His presence in the kingdom, he very well knew, 
had caused great uneasiness and perplexity. The smallness 
of the resources of the Neapolitan government, and the 
extent of our claim, were well calculated to agitate and em- 
barrass the king and his advisers. Mr. Pinkney determined 
to deepen this impression, and, instead of useless confer- 
ences with a minister, who could adjust nothing in dispute, 
he sent in his letter, setting forth in language not to be mis- 
understood, and with an array of arguments not to be an- 
swered, the justice and equity of our claim. 

To this letter Mr. Pinkney received no reply. He 
"pressed the marquis for an answer, and insisted that if he 
could not reply to it immediately he would name the time 
witliin which it was probable he could do so." Here was 
no slumbering over duty, no tame submission, no weak ir- 
resolution. What was the answer of the Neapolitan min- 
ister to the strong and earnest language of Mr. Pinkney ? 
How did he justify the conduct of his government .? He 
said "that an immediate answer was really impossible, and 
that he could not, without running the risk of misleading 
Mr. Pinkney, fix any precise time for the giving of such an 
answer as should be categorical," When asked the reason 
of this, " he obseiTcd that the papers had been scattered 
about in such a way that, with all the dihgence they could 
use, they had not been able to collect them ; that all proper 
steps had been taken by the king's government for obtaining 
the papers, &c." 

What was the course that propriety, delicacy, and na- 
tional decorum demanded of our minister under such cir- 
cumstances.? Doubt of the word, impeachment of the 
motive, or censure of the conduct pursued by his Majesty's 



154 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

government ? Let Mr, Pinkney be heard, and we rest his 
vindication uj)on the answer, without fear of the result, 
" Avoiding extremes of every kind, I have sought to write 
and speak with poHteness, hut, at the same time, explicitly 
and firmly. Without being studiously conciliatory, I have 
forborne all menaces, I might have contrived to display a 
more active and zealous importunity than my letters de- 
scribe ; but it could only have been that teazing importu- 
nity which, wanting dignity, and unauthorized by usage, has 
nothing to recommend its introduction into transactions like 
this. No proper oj)portunity has been missed to urge this 
government to a favorable decision. The reasons suggested 
for a short postponement of its decision are such as, I sup- 
pose, I could not quarrel with without putting myself in 
the wrong. They are perfectly respectful to the United 
States, and of real weight in themselves," 

What American will impeach the logic or morale of this 
reasoning ? We had an unsettled claim against a weaker 
power. That power soUcited, in a sj)irit of seeming fairness, 
time for collecting the papers in evidence, after having used, 
as they averred, all proper diligence, to get possession of 
them. The plea is admitted by our agent. Who will con- 
demn the deed ? and what, though the plea turned out to 
be deceptive and false, a mere trick of diplomatic finesse, 
is it admissible to seize hold of a subsequent disclosure, and 
urge it to the prejudice of the party negotiating ? . 

If, as the reviewer intimates, Mr. Pinkney was politely 
bowed out of Naples, and a trick resorted to, to rid the 
government of the presence of one whom they had good 
cause to dread, it is to his lasting honor that he scorned the 
imputation of an unworthy motive to the government of 
Naples, upon vague suspicion, and dealt with her with a 
moderation and tender j)olicy worthy of a better cause. His 
letter of August 24th, was a triumphant vindication of our 
rights, and his declining to jjroceed in eoctrxmis, and lending 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 155 

a favorable ear to what appeared to be reasonable in itself, 
just, and fair, and could be construed into no want of re- 
spect for the United States ; so far from diminishing his 
reputation as a statesman, and exposing him to censure, is 
a beautiful illustration of his characteristic fairness and 
honesty of deportment. 

The reviewer wrote under the influence of light thrown 
upon the transaction by subsequent events. He saw the 
end from the beginning. The treachery and duphcity of 
the Court of Naples were, at the time he wrote, things de- 
monstrated. But it is due to Mr. Pinkney to remember, 
that duplicity proved is quite a difierent thing from duplic- 
ity assumed. Mr. Pinkney was compelled to act upon the 
alleged reasons of the government of Naples, the distinct 
and positive assurances of the marquis ; and it would have 
been rude in the extreme to have called the candor and fair 
dealing of the Neapolitan government in question upon 
mere suspicion. In forming our judgment upon the true 
merits of the case, and deciding upon the wisdom and pro- 
priety of the course pursued by Mr. Pinkney, we must place 
ourselves in his position, and banish from our minds facts 
that were subsequently revealed. 

Mr. Pinkney's abihty in discussing great constitutional 
questions, was often tested in the Supreme Court of the 
Union and on the floor of Congress ; and he alwaj^s spoke 
to command admiration. There was a loftiness of principle, 
a broad nationality, a dignity and gravity, that indicated a 
beautiful and abiding appreciation on his part of the vast 
importance of every constitutional discussion. He never 
opened his lips in the examination of that august instrument 
but he seemed to behold his country's honor and true glory 
involved in the issue. He always merged the advocate in 
the comprehensive, enlarged, august American statesman. 
And perhaps on no occasion did he display his ijrofound 
acquaintance with the great principles of the constitution, 



156 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

or liis keen analytic logic, or pure American feeling more 
conspicuously, than in the discussion on the floor of the 
Senate, of the great Missouri question. 

Mr. Piukney, it has been shown, was but a short time in 
Congress. While a member of the lower House he em- 
barked in the discussion of the treaty-making power. Some 
of the first men in the country figui:ed in that Congress, 
and participated in that debate. John Kandolph, the 
pride and boast of Virginia, followed in reply. He paid the 
highest compliment to the eloquence and power of Mr. 
Pinkney, but wholly discarded his view of the question. 
The whole force of the opposition was turned against this 
speech, with what degree of correctness we leave posterity 
to decide. This was the first time that Randolph and 
Pinkney encountered each other ; and it is gratifying to 
know, that the conflict was characterized in the besinnins: 
with the most cordial expressions of mutual admiration and 
respect, and ended in the most unlimited homage of the 
former to the powers of the latter ; who, after the delivery 
of the speech on the Missouri Compromise, it has been said 
to me, did not hesitate to accord to Mr. Pinkney the rank 
of the first constitutional lawyer and statesman in the 
land. 

It may be thought that I have consumed too much time, 
and put myself to needless trouble, in vindicating Mr. Pink- 
ney's title to the name and character of a statesman. But 
when it is remembered, that so many years have passed 
since he served the country in that capacity, and that in 
the only biography written of him there is scarce any men- 
tion made of this feature of his character, — when it is re- 
membered that the country was distracted at the time by 
the most rancorous party dissensions, and that the bitterness 
of partisan fury was let loose upon him ; it will be conceded 
that his life could not properly be written, or his character 
drawn, without a calm review of the services rendered, and 



LIFE OF WILLIABI PINKNEY. 157 

the accusations hurled against him. The most eloquent of 
New England's sons and the first of her living lawyers, Kufus 
Choate, in an eulogy upon recent departed worth, undertook 
to hmit Mr. Pinkney's pre-eminence to the Bar, and to 
throw a veil over his qualities as a statesman. He either 
had not look«d into this chapter of Mr. Pinkney's life, or 
else was disposed to overlook its incontestable claims to a 
nation's gratitude and praise. The time was, when New 
England thought and spoke differently upon this subject. 
Her own Story declared, that Mr. Pinkney "honored the 
country while abroad by an unparalleled display of diplo- 
maiic science, and on his return, illuminated the halls of 
justice with an eloquence of argument and depth of learned 
research, that has not been exceeded in our day." The North 
American Review, speaking the convictions of another of New 
England's distinguished sons, declared that he was second to 
none of the great names opposed to him in all the qualities 
that make up the august character of a statesman. Hundreds 
who might read and receive as oracular, the burning elo- 
quence of Eufus Choate, if the biography of William Pink- 
ney were wanting in fidehty to his memory, may be induced 
to pause and consider ere they give too easy credence to the 
behef that Pinkney's chief excellence was that of a lawyer, 
when they peruse these pages, and listen, not only to what 
Story has said, but recall to mind a fact in the history of the 
past, known at this day to but few, that as early as 1819 
he aimed the first decisive blow at the mad spirit of nulhfi- 
cation, and brushed away, " as with a mighty besom, the 
cobweb conceits about State rights and State sovereignty," at 
a time, too, when their own incomparable Webster was by 
his side ; and, in 1820, stood forth the defender of the 
States against the infringement of national usurpation ; thus 
entitling himself to the lasting gratitude of his country, for 
so poising the shield of the constitution, as to protect each of 
these associate powers in its own peculiar and apjjropriate 



158 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

jurisdiction. I may close this portion of the bjography with 
the expression of surprise, that such distinguished testimony 
and trumpet-tongued facts should be so soon forgotten, or 
strangely overlooked in her present eloquent musings of 
the past. 

Vir clarissimus, amantissimus Eeipublicae benefacere 
amplissimis affeotus, summis ornamentis honoris, fortunae, 
virtutis ingenii preeditus. 

The annexed memorial was written by Mr. Pinkney, and 
pronounced at the time by a distinguished judge to " be a 
most masterly composition, a complete and unanswerable 
defence of neutral rights against the belligerent pi^tensions 
and encroachments, whose maocims were ivorthy of being 
committed to memory by every statesman in all countries." 



MEMORIAL ON THE RULE OF THE WAR OF 1756. 

To the President of the United States, and the Senate and 
House of Representatives of the United States of Ame^'ica, 
in Congress assembled. 

THE MEMORIAL OF THE MERCHANTS AND TRADERS OF THE 
CITY OF BALTIMORE. 

Your memorialists beg leave respectfully to submit to 
your consideration the following statements and reflections, 
produced by the situation of our public affairs, in a high de- 
gree critical and perilous, and peculiarly affecting the com- 
merce of their country. 

In the early part of the late war between Great Britain 
and France, the former undertook to prohibit neutral na- 
tions from all trade whatsoever with the colonies of the lat- 
ter. This exorbitant pretension was not long persisted in. 
It was soon qualified in favor of a direct trade between the 
United States and these colonies, and some years afterwards was 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 159 

further relaxed in favor of European neutrals. The United 
States being thus admitted, by the express acknowledgment 
of Great Britain, to a direct trade, without limit, between 
their own ports and tlie colonies of the opposite belligerents, 
another trade naturally and necessarily grew out of it, or ra- 
ther formed one of its principal objects and inducements. 
The surplus colonial produce, beyond our own consumption, 
imported here, was to be carried elsewhere for a market ; and 
it was accordingly carried to Europe, sometimes by the ori- 
ginal importer, sometimes by other American merchants, 
either in the vessels in which the importation was made, or 
in others. In the course of this traffic, it was understood to 
be the sense of Great Britain, and was explicitly declared 
by her courts of prize, that although she had not expressly 
allowed to the merchants of the United States, by the letter 
of her relaxations, an immediate trade between the colonies 
of her enemies and the markets of Europe, a circuitous trade 
to Europe, in the production of these colonies, was unexcep- 
tionable ; and nothing more was necessary to make it so, 
than that the continuity of the voyage should be broken by 
an entry, and payment of duties, and the landing of the co- 
lonial cargo in the United States. During the greater part 
of the late war, and the first years of the present, this trade 
was securely prosecuted by our merchants, in the form which 
Great Britain had thus thought fit to give it. 

The modification of a traffic, in itself entitled to be free, 
was submitted to, on our part, without repining, because it 
presented a clear and definite rule of conduct, which, al- 
though unauthorized in the light of a restriction, was not 
greatly inconvenient in its practical operation ; and your me- 
morialists entertained a confident hope, that, while on the 
one hand, they sought no change of system by which the as- 
sumption of Great Britain to impose terms, however mild in 
their character and efiect, upon their lawful commerce, 
should be repelled ; on the other hand, it would be desired, 



160 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

that the state of things which Great Britain had herself pre- 
scribed, and which use and habit had rendered famihar, and 
intelligible to all, should be disturbed by oppressive innova- 
tions ; far less that these innovations should, by a tyrannical 
retrospection, be made to justify the seizure and confiscation 
of their property, committed to the high seas, under the pro- 
tection of the existing rule, and without warning of the in- 
tended change. 

In this their just hope, your memorialists have been fa- 
tally disappointed. Their vessels and effects, to a large 
amount, have lately been captured by the commissioned 
cruisers of Great Britain, upon the foundation of new prin- 
ciples, suddenly invented, and applied to this habitual traf- 
fic, and suggested, and promulgated, for the first time, by 
sentences of condemnation ; by which, unavoidable ignorance 
has been considered as criminal, and an honorable confidence 
in the justice of a friendly nation, pursued with penalty and 
forfeiture. 

Your memorialists are in no situation to state the pre- 
cise nature of the rules to which their most important in- 
terests have thus been sacrificed : and it is not the least of 
their complaints against them, that they are undefined, and 
undefinable, equivocal in their form, and the fit instruments 
of oppression by reason of their ambiguity. 

Your memorialists know that the circumstances which 
have heretofore been admitted to give legality to their trade, 
in colonial productions, with their European friends, protect 
it no longer. But they have not yet been told, and are not 
soon likely to learn, what other circumstances will be suf- 
fered to produce that consequence. It is supposed to have 
been judicially declared, in general, that a voyage under- 
taken for the purpose of bringing into the United States the 
produce of the belligerent colonies, purchased by American 
citizens, shall, if it appears to be intended that this produce 
shall ultimately go on to Europe, and an attempt is actually 



LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNEY. 161 

made to re-export and send it thither, be considered, on ac- 
count of that intention, as a direct voyage to Euroi^e, and 
therefore illegal, notwithstanding any temporary interruption 
or termination of it in the United States. 

Your memorialists will not here stop to inquire upon 
what grounds of law or reason the same act is held to be 
legal when commenced with one intention, and illegal when 
undertaken with another. But they object, in the strongest 
terms, against this new criterion of legality, because of its 
inevitable tendency to injustice ; because of its peculiar 
capacity to embarrass with seizure, and to ruin with 
confiscation, the whole of our trade with Europe in the sur- 
plus of our colonial importations. 

The inquiry which the late system indicated was short 
and simple, and precluded error on aU sides ; but the new re- 
finement substitutes in its place a vast field of speculation, 
overshadowed with doubt and uncertainty, and of which the 
faint and shifting boundaries can never be distinctly known. 

Intention, as to the object of our colonial voyages, may 
be inferred from numerous circumstances, more or less con- 
clusive. To anticipate them all is obviously imi)racticable ; 
and of course to guard against the inference, in this respect, 
which British caj^tors and British courts may be disposed to 
draw, will be impossible. Our property is therefore men- 
aced by a great and formidable danger, which there are no 
means of eluding ; for even if it should chance to escape the 
condemnation which this pernicious novelty prepares for it, 
the wound inflicted upon our commerce by arrestations on 
suspicion, and detentions for adjudication, will be deep and 
fatal. The efforts of our merchants will be checked and dis- 
couraged by more than ordinary inquisitions ; our best con- 
certed enterprises broken up, without the hope of retribu- 
tion, or even reimbursement for actual costs, upon the footing 
of an intention arbitrarily imputed ; and the only alterna- 
tive which will be presented to our choice will be, either to 
11 



162 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

refrain at once from a traffic which enriches our countiy 
while it benefits ourselves, or to see it wasted, and in the 
end destroyed, by a noxious system of maritime depredation. 
Your memorialists are the more alarmed by this depart- 
ure from a plain and settled nile, in favor of a pliant and 
mysterious doctrine, so eminently suited to the accomplish- 
ment of the worst purposes of commercial jealousy, because 
the injurious and vexatious qualities of the substituted rule 
must have been known to those who introduced it, and be- 
cause, if these qualities did not recommend it to adoption, it 
is difficult to conceive why it was adopted at all. If it is 
meant that our trade to Europe shall, notwithstanding this 
rule, be allowed to continue without being subjected to ex- 
traordinary difficulties, operating as actual reductions and 
mischievous restraints ; if it is meant that a few facts, known 
and comprehended, shall, as heretofore, form a standard by 
which the lawfulness of our European voyages may be une- 
quivocally ascertained ; if a wide range has not been designed 
for the inquiry after intention, and a real effect expected from 
that inquiry ; if, in a word, the late regulation has not been 
supposed to be capable of bearing on our trade in a manner 
new and important, we should hardly have now been called 
upon to remonstrate against a change. It is not pretended 
that the rule now enforced against us, is levelled against any 
practice to which we may be supposed to have lent ourselves, 
of disguising as our own the property of the enemies of Great 
Britain. That is not its object ; and if it were, we are ena- 
bled to assert, solemnly and confidently, that our conduct has 
afforded no ground for the injurious suspicion which such an 
object would imply. The view is professedly to regulate and 
effect our traffic in articles fairly purchased by us from others; 
and if the consequences to that traffic were not intended to 
be serious, and extensive, and permanent, your memorialists 
search in vain for the motive by which a state, in amity with 
our own, and moreover connected with it by the ties of com- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 163 

mon interest, to which many considerations seem to give pe- 
culiar strength, has been induced to indulge in a paroxysm 
of capricious aggression upon our rights, by which it dishon- 
ors itself without promoting any of those great interests for 
which an enlightened nation may fairly be solicitous, and 
which only a steady regard for justice can ultimately secure. 
When we see a powerful state, in possession of a commerce 
of which the world atfords no examples, endeavoring 'to in- 
terpolate into the laws of nations casuistical niceties and way- 
ward distinctions, which forbid a citizen of another inde- 
pendent commercial country, to export from that country 
what unquestionably belongs to him, only because he im- 
ported it himself, and yet allow him to sell a right of export- 
ing it to another ; which prohibit an end because it arises 
out of one intention, but permit it when it arises out oftivo; 
which, dividing an act into stages, search into the mind for 
a correspondent division of it in the contemplation of its au- 
thor, and determine its innocence or criminality accordingly; 
which, not denying that the property acquired in an author- 
ized traffic, by neutral nations from belligerents, may become 
incorporated into the national stock, and under the shelter of 
its neutral character, thus superinduced, and still preserved, 
be afterwaixls transported to every quarter of the globe, re- 
ject the only epoch which can distinctly mark that incorpo- 
ration, and point out none other in its place ; which, pro- 
posing to fix with accuracy and precision the line of demar- 
cation, beyond which neutrals are trespassers upon the wide 
domain of belligerent rights, involves every thing in darkness 
and confusion : there can be but one opinion as to the purpose 
which all this is to accomplish. 

Your memorialists have endeavored, with all that at- 
tention which their natural anxiety was calculated to produce, 
to ascertain the various shapes which the doctrine in question 
is likely to assume in practice, but they have found it impossi- 
ble to conjecture in what way, consistently with this doctrine, 



164 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

the excess of our imports from the belligerent colonies cau 
find its way to foreign markets. The landing of the cargOy 
and a comjiliance with all the forms and sanctions, upon 
which our revenue depends, will not so terminate the voy- 
age from the colonies, as that the articles may be imme- 
diately re-exported to Europe by the original importer. But 
if they cannot be exported immediately, what lapse of time 
will give them a title to be sent abroad, and if not by the 
original importer, how is he to devolve upon another a power 
which he has not himself ? And if by a sale, he can com- 
municate the power, by what evidence is the transfer to be 
manifested, so as to furnish an answer to the ready accusa- 
tion of fraud and evasion ? In proportion as this doctrine 
has developed itself, it has been found necessary to invent 
plausible qualifications, tending to conceal its real character 
I'rom observation. It has accordingly been surmised, that, 
notwithstanding the obstacles which it provides against the 
re-exportation of a colonial cargo by the importer, such a 
re-exportation may, perhaps, be lawful. Attempts on his 
part to sell in the United States, without effect, (which 
must often happen), may, it is supposed, be sufficient to save 
him from the peril of the rule. But, admitting it to be cer- 
tain, instead of being barely possible, that these attempts 
would form any thing like security aganst final condemna- 
tion, it is still most material to ask, how they are to afford 
protection against seizure ? By what documents they can 
be proved to the satisfaction of those to whom interest sug- 
gests doubts, and whom impunity encourages to act uijon 
them ? The formal transactions of the custom-house once 
deserted as a criterion, the cargo must be followed, through 
private transfers, into the warehouses of individual mer- 
chants ; and when proofs have been prepard, with the utmost 
regularity, to establish these transfers, or the other facts 
which may be deemed to be equivalent, they are still liable 
to be suspected, and will be suspected, as fictitious and color- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM TINKNEY. 165 

able, and capture will be the consequence. Ft)r the loss and 
damage which capture brings along with it, British courts of 
prize grant no adequate indemnity. Redress to any extent 
is difficult ; to a competent extent, impossible. And even 
the costs which an iniquitous seizure compels a neutral mer- 
chant to incur, in the defence of his violated rights, before 
their own tribunals, are seldom decreed, and never paid. 

Your memorialists have thus far complained only of the 
recent abandonment, by Great Britain, of a known rule, by 
which the oppressive character of an important principle of 
her maritime code, has heretofore been gi'catly mitigated. 
But they now beg leave to enter their solemn protest against 
the principle itself, as an arbitraiy and unfounded pretension, 
by which the just liberty of neutral commerce is impaired 
and abridged, and may be wholly destroyed. 

The reasons ujion which Grreat Britain assumes to her- 
self a right to interdict to the independent nations of the 
earth, a commercial intercourse with the colonics of her ene- 
mies (out of the relaxation of wliich pretended right has 
arisen the distinction in her courts between an American 
trade from the colonies to the United States, and from the 
same colonies to Europe) will, we are confidently persuaded, 
be repelled with firmness and effect by our government. 

It is said by the advocates of this high belligerent claim, 
that neutral nations have no right to carry on with either 
of the parties at war, any other trade than they have actually 
enjoyed in time of peace. This position forms the basis 
upon which Great Britain has, heretofore, rested her sup- 
posed title to prevent altogether, or to modify at her discre- 
tion, the interposition of neutrals in the colony trade of her 
adversaries. 

But, if we are called upon to admit the truth of this 
position, it seems reasonable that the converse of it should 
also be admitted. That war should not be allowed to dis- 
turb the customary trade of neutrals in peace ; that the 



166 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

peace-traffic sHould, in every view, be held to be the measure 
of the war-traffic ; and that, as on the one hand there can 
be no enlargement, on the other there shall be no restriction. 
What, however, is the fact ? The first moment of hostili- 
ties annihilates the commerce of the nations at peace, in 
articles deemed contraband of war ; the property of the bil- 
ligerents can no longer be carried in neutral ships ; they are 
subject to visitation on the high seas ; to harassing and vex- 
atious search ; to detention for judicial inquiry ; and to the 
peril of unjust confiscation : they are shut out from their 
usual markets, not only by military enterprises against par- 
ticular places, carried on with a view to their reduction, but 
by a vast system of blockade, afiecting and closing up the 
entire ports of a whole nation : such have been the recent 
effects of an European war upon the trade of this neutral 
country ; and the prospect of the future affords no consola- 
tion for the past. The triumphant fleets of one of the con- 
tending powers cover the ocean ; the navy of her enemies 
has fallen before her ; the communication by sea with France, 
and Spain, and Holland, seems to depend upon her will, and 
she asserts a right to destroy it at her pleasure : she forbids 
us from transporting, in our vessels, as in peace we could, 
the property of her enemies ; enforces against us a rigorous 
list of contraband ; dams up the great channels of our ordi- 
nary trade ; abridges, trammels, and obstructs what she per- 
mits us prosecute, and then refers us to our accustomed 
traffic in time of peace, fur the criterion of our commercial 
rights, in order to justify the consummation of that ruin 
with which our lawful commerce is menaced by her maxims 
and her conduct. 

This principle, therefore, cannot be a sound one ; it wants 
uniformity and consistency; is partial, unequal, and delusive: 
it makes every thing bend to the rights of war, while it af- 
fects to look back to, and to recognize, the state of things in 
peace, as the foundation and the measure of the rights of 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 167 

neutrals. Professing to respect the established and habitual 
trade of the nations at peace, it aifords no shadow of security 
for any part of it : professing to be an equitable standard for 
the ascertainment of neutral rights, it deprives them of all 
body and substance, and leaves them only a plausible and 
unreal appearance of magnitude and importance ; it delivers 
them over, in a word, to the mercy of the states at war, as 
objects of legitimate hostility; and while it seems to define, 
does, in fact, extinguish them. Such is the faithful picture 
of the theory, and practical operation of this doctrine. 

But, independent of the considerations thus arising out 
of the immediate interference of belligerent rights and bellig- 
erent conduct with the freedom of neutral trade, by which 
the fallacy of the appeal to the precise state of our peace- 
trade, as limiting the nature and extent of our trade in war, 
is sufficiently manifested, there are other considerations 
which satisfactorily prove the inadmissibility of this principle. 

It is impossible that war among the primary powers of 
Europe should not, in an endless variety of shapes, mate- 
rially affect the whole civilized world. Its operation upon 
the prices of labor and commodities ; upon the value of 
money; upon exchange; upon the rates of freight and insur- 
ance, is great and important. But it does much more than 
all this. It imposes upon commerce in the gross, and in its 
details, a new character ; gives to it a new direction, and 
places it upon new foundations. It abolishes one class of 
demands ; creates, or revives others ; and diminishes, or aug- 
ments the rest. And, while the wants of mankind are in- 
finitely varied by its powerful agency, both in object and 
degree, the modes and sources of supply, and the means of 
payment are infinitely varied also. 

To prescribe to neutral trade thus iiTCsistibly influenced, 
and changed, and moulded by this imperious agent, a fixed 
and unalterable station, would be to say that it shall remain 
the same, when not to vary is impossible ; and to require. 



168 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

since change is unavoidable, that it shall submit to the 
ruinous retrenchments and modifications which war produces, 
and yet refrain from indemnifying itself by the fair advan- 
tages which war offers to it as an equivalent, cannot be war- 
ranted by any rule of reason or equity, or by any law to which 
the great community of nations owes respect and obe- 
dience. 

When we examine the conduct of the maritime powers 
of Europe, in all the wars in which they have been engaged 
for upwards of a century, we find that each of them has, oc- 
casionally, departed from its scheme of colonial monopoly ; 
relaxed its navigation laws, and otherwise admitted neutrals 
for a longer or shorter space, as circumstances required, to 
modes of trade from which they were generally excluded. 

This universal practice, this constant and invariable 
usage, for a long series of years, would seem to have estab- 
lished among the European states a sort of customary law 
upon the subject of it, from which no single power could be 
at liberty to depart, in search of a questionable theory at 
variance with it. Great Britain is known to suspend, in war 
and on account of war, her famous act of navigation, to which 
she is supposed to owe her maritime greatness, and which, 
as the palladium of her power, she holds inviolable in peace; 
and her colonies are frequently thrown open, and neutrals in- 
vited to supply them, when she cannot supply them herself. 
She makes treaties in the midst of war (she made such a 
treaty with us), by which neutrals are received into a partici- 
pation of an extensive traffic, to which before they had no 
title. And can she be suffered to object, that the same, or 
analogous acts are unlawful in her enemies ; or that, when 
neutrals avail themselves of similar concessions made by her 
opponents, they are liable to j)unishment, as for a criminal 
intrusion into an irregular and prohibited commerce ? 

The weight of tliis consideration has been felt by the 
advocates of this doctrine, and it has, accordingly, been at- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 169 

tempted to evade it by a distinction, which admits the 
legality of all such relaxations in war, of the general, com- 
mercial or colonial systems of the belligerents, as do not arise 
out of the predominance of the enemy's force, or out of any 
necessity resulting from it. 

It is apparent, however, that such relaxations, whether 
dictated by the actual ascertained predominance of the 
enemy's force, or not, do arise out of the state of war, and 
are almost universally compelled, and produced by it ; that 
they are intended as reliefs against evils which war has 
brought along with it, and the opposite belligerent has just 
as much right to insist, that these evils shall not be removed 
by neutral aid, or interposition, as if they were produced by 
the general preponderance of her own power, upon the land 
or upon the sea, or by the general success of her arms. In 
the one case, as completely as in the other, the interference 
of the neutral lightens the i)ressure of war ; increases the 
capacity to bear its calamities, or the power to inflict them ; 
and supplies the means of comfort and of strength. In both 
cases, the practical effect is the same, and the legal conse- 
quences should be the same also. 

But whence are we to derive the conclusion of the fact 
upon Avhich this extraordinary distinction is made to turn ? 
How are we to determine with precision and certainty, the 
exact cause which opens to us the ports of a nation at war — 
to analyze the various circumstances, of which, perhaps, the 
concession may be the combined effect ; and to assign to each 
the just portion of influence to which it has a claim ? How 
easy it is to deceive ourselves on a subject of this kind. Great 
Britain will herself instruct us, by a recent example. Her 
courts of prize have insisted that, during the war which ended 
in the peace of Amiens, France was compelled to open the 
ports of her colonies, by a necessity created and imposed by 
the naval prowess of her enemies. And yet these ports were 
opened in February, 1793, when France and her maritime 



170 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 

adversaries had not measured their strength in a single con- 
flict ; when no naval enterprise had been undertaken by the 
latter, far less crowned with success ; when the lists were 
not even entered, and when the superiority afterwards ac- 
quired, by Great Britain in particular, was yet a problem ; 
when the spirit of the French nation and government was 
lifted up to an unexampled height, by the enthusiasm of the 
day, and by the splendid achievements by which their armies 
had recently conquered Savoy, the county of Nice, Worms, 
and other places on the Khine, the Austrian Low Countries, 
and Liege. It would seem to be next to impossible to con- 
tend that a concession made by France to neutrals, on the 
subject of her colony trade, at such a period of exultation 
and triumph, was " compelled by the prevalence of British 
arms," that it was " the fruit of British victories," or the re- 
sult of " British conquest," that it arose out of the pre- 
dominance of the enemy's force, that it was produced by 
" that sort of necessity which springs from the impossibility 
of otherwise providing against the urgency of distress inflicted 
by the hand of a superior enemy," and that " it was a signal 
of defeat and depression." It would seem to be impossible 
to say of a traffic so derived, " that it could obtain or did 
obtain, by no other title than the success of the one bellig- 
erent against the other, and at the expense of that very bel- 
ligerent under whose success the neutral sets up his title." 
Yet all these things have been said, and solemnly maintained, 
and have even been made the foundation of acts, by which 
the property of our citizens has been wrested from their hands. 
It cannot be believed that the laws of nations have intrusted to 
a belligerent the power of harassing the trade, and confiscating 
the ships and merchandise of peaceable and friendly nations, 
upon grounds so vague, so indefinite, and equivocal. Of all 
law, certainty is the best feature ; and no rule can be otherwise 
than unjust and despotic, of which the sense and the appli- 
cation are and must be ambiguous. A siege or blockade pre- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 171 

gents an intclli<;iblo standard, by which it may always be 
known, that no lawful trade can be carried on with the 
places against which either has been instituted. But the 
suggestions upon which this new belligerent encroachment, 
having all the effect of a siege or blockade, is founded, are 
absolutely incapable of a distinct form, either for the pur- 
pose of warning to neutrals or as the basis of a judicial sen- 
tence. The neutral merchant finds that, in fact, the colo- 
nial ports of the parties to the war are thrown open to him 
by the powers to which they belong ; and he sees no hos- 
tile squadrons to shut them against him. Is he to pause, 
before he ventures to exercise his natural right to trade 
■with those who are willing to trade with him, until he 
has inquired and determined ivlnj these ports have been 
thus made free to receive him.^ To such a complicated 
and delicate discussion, no nation has a right to call him. It 
is enough that an actual blockade can be set on foot to close 
these ports, and that they may be made the objects of direct 
efforts, for conquest or occlusion, if the enemy's force is, in 
truth, so decidedly predominant as is pretended to be. And 
if it is not predominant to that point, and to that extent, 
there can be no cause for ascribing to it an effect to which it 
is physically incompetent, or for allowing it to do that con- 
structively, which it cannot do, and has not done, actually. 
The pernicious qualities of tliis doctrine are enhanced and 
aggravated, as from its nature might be expected, by the 
fact, that Great Britain gives no notice of the time when, 
or the circumstances in which she means to apply and enforce 
it. Her orders of the 6th of November, 1793, by which the 
seas were swept of our vessels and effects, were, for the first 
time, announced by the ships of war and privateers by which 
they were carried into execution. The late decisions of her 
courts, which are in the true spirit of this doctrine, and are 
calculated to restore it, in practice, to that high tone of se- 
verity which milder decisions had almost concealed from the 



172 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

world, came upon us by surprise ; and the captures of which 
the Dutch complained in the seven years' war, were preceded 
by no warning. Thus is this principle most rapacious and 
oppressive in all its bearings. Harsh and mysterious in itself, 
it has always been and ever must be used to betray neutral 
merchants into a trade supposed to be lawful, and then to 
give them up to pillage and to ruin. Compared with this 
principle, which violence and artifice may equally claim for 
their own, the exploded doctrine of constructive blockade, by 
which belligerents for a time insulted and plundered the 
states at peace, is innocent and harmless. That doctrine 
had something of certainty belonging to it, and made safety 
at least possible. But there can be no security while a ma- 
lignant and deceitful principle like this hangs over us. It 
is just what a belligerent chooses to make it — lurking, un- 
seen, and unfelt — or visible, active, and noxious. It may 
come abroad when least expected ; and the moment of con- 
fidence may be the moment of destruction. It may sleep 
for a time, but no man knows when it is to awake, to shed its 
baleful influence upon the commerce of the world. It clothes 
itself from season to season, in what are called relaxations, 
but again, without any previous intimation to the deluded 
citizens of the neutral powers, these relaxations are suddenly 
laid aside either in the whole or in j)art, and the work of 
confiscation commences. Nearly ten months of the late war 
had elapsed before it announced itself at all, and when it 
did so, it was in its most formidable shape, and in its fullest 
power and expansion. In a few weeks it was seen to lose 
more than half its substance and character, and before the 
conclusion of the war, was scarcely perceptible. With the 
opening of the present war it reappeared in its mildest form, 
which it is again abandoning for another, more consonant 
to its spirit. Such are its capricious fluctuations, that no 
commercial undertaking which it can in any way efiect, can 
be considered as otherwise than precarious, whatever may 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 173 

be the avowed state of the principle at the time of its com- 
mencement. 

It lias been said that, by embarking in the colony trade 
of either of the belligerents, neutral nations in some sort in- 
terpose in the war, since they assist and serve the belliger- 
ent, in whose trade they so embark. It is a sufficient an- 
swer to this observation, that the same course of reasoning: 
would prove that neutrals ought to discontinue all trade 
whatsoever with the parties at war. A continuance of their 
accustomed peace trade assists and serves the belligerent with 
whom it is continued ; and if this effect were sufficient to 
make a trade unneutral and illegal, the best established and 
most usual traffic would of course become so. But Great 
Britain supplies us with another answer to this notion, that 
our interference in the trade of the colonies of her enemies 
is unlawful, because they are benefited by it. It is known 
that the same trade is, and long has been, carried on by 
British subjects; and your memorialists feel themselves 
bound to state that, according to authentic information 
lately received, the government of Great Britain does at this 
moment grant licenses to neutral vessels, taking in a propor- 
tion of their cargoes there, to proceed on trading voyages to 
the colonies of Spain, from which she would exclude us, upon 
the condition that the return cargoes shall be earned to 
Great Britain, to swell the gains of her merchants, and to 
give her a monopoly of the commerce of the world. This 
great belligerent right then, upon whicli so much has been 
suijposcd to depend, sinks into an article of barter. It is 
used, not as a hostile instrument wielded by a warlike state, 
by which her enemies are to be wounded, or their colonies 
subdued, but as the selfish means of commercial aggrandize- 
ment, to the impoverishment and ruin of her friends ; as an 
engine by which Great Britain is to be lifted up to a vast 
height of prosperity, and the trade of neutrals crippled, and 
crushed, and destroyed. Such acts are a most inteUigible 



174 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

commentary upon the principle in question. They show that 
it is a hollow and fallacious 23iinciple, susceptible of the 
worst abuse, and incapable of a just and honorable applica- 
tion. They show that in the hands of a great maritime 
state, it is not in its ostensible character of a weapon of hos- 
lility that it is prized, but rather as one of the means of 
establishing an unbounded monopoly, by which every enter- 
prise, calculated to promote national wealth and power, shall 
be made to begin and end in Great Britain alone. Such 
acts may well be considered as pronouncing the condemna- 
tion of the principle against which we contend, as with- 
drawing from it the only pretext upon which it is jiossible 
to rest it. 

Great Britain does not pretend that this principle has any 
warrant in the opinions of writers on public law. She does 
not pretend, and cannot pretend, that it derives any counte- 
nance from the conduct of other nations. She is confessedly 
solitary in the use of this invention, by which rapacity is sys- 
tematized, and a state of neutrality and war are made sub- 
stantially the same. In this absence of all other authority, 
her courts have made an appeal to her own early example, 
for the justification of her own recent practice. Your memo- 
rialists join in that appeal, as affording the most conclusive 
and authoritative reprobation of the practice which it is in- 
tended to support by it. 

It would be easy to show, by an examination of the dif- 
ferent treaties to which Great Britain has been a party from 
times long past, that this doctrine is a modern usurpation. 
It would be equally easy to show, that during the greater 
part of the last century, her statesmen and lawyers uniformly 
disavowed it, either expressly or tacitly. But it is to a re- 
view oi judicial examples, of all others the most weighty and 
solemn, that your memorialists propose to confine them- 
selves. 

In the war of 1744, in which Great Britain had the pow- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 175 

er, if she had thought fit to exert it, to exclude the neutral 
states from the colony trade of France and Spain, her high 
court of appeals decided that the trade was lawful, and re- 
leased such vessels as had been found engaged in it. 

In the war which soon followed the peace of Aix la 
Chapelle, Great Britain is supposed to have first acted upon 
the pretension that such a trade was unlawful, as being shut 
against neutrals in peace. And it is certain that, during the 
whole of that war, her courts of prize did condemn all neu- 
tral vessels taken in the prosecution of that trade, together 
with their cargoes, whether French or neutral. These con- 
demnations, however, proceeded upon peculiar grounds. In 
the seven years' w^ar France did not tlirow open to neutrals 
the traffic of her colonies. She established no free ports in 
the east, or in the west, with which foreign vessels could be 
permitted to trade, either generally or occasionally as such. 
Her first practice was simply to grant special licenses to par- 
ticular neutral vessels, principally Dutch, and commonly 
chartered by Frenchmen, to make, under the usual restric- 
tions, particular trading voyages to the colonies. These li- 
censes furnished the British courts with a peculiar reason for 
condemning vessels sailing under them, viz., " that they be- 
came in virtue of them the adopted or naturalized vessels of 
France." 

As soon as it was known that this effect was imputed to 
these licenses they were discontinued, or pretended to be so ; 
but the discontinuance, whether real or supposed, produced 
no change in the conduct of Great Britain ; for neutral ves- 
sels, employed in this trade, were captured and condemned 
as before. The grounds upon which they continued to be 
so captured and condemned, may best be collected from the 
reasons subjoined to the printed cases in the prize causes de- 
cided by the high court of admiralty (in which Sir Thomas 
Salisbury at that time presided), and by the lords commision- 
ers of appeals, between 1757 and 1760. 



176 LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNEY» 

In the ease of tlie America (which was a Dutch ship, 
bound from St. Domingo to Holland, with the produce of that 
island belonging to French subjects, by whom the vessel had 
been cliartered), the reason stated in the printed case is, "that 
the ship must be looked upon as a French ship (coming from 
St. Domingo), for by the laws of France no foreign ship can 
trade in the French West Indies." 

In the case of the Snip, the reason (assigned by Sir 
George Hays and Mr. Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden) is, 
" for that the Snip (though once the property of Dutchmen) 
being employed in carrying provisions to, and goods from a 
French colony, thereby hecmne a French ship, and as such 
was justly condemned." 

It is obvious that the reason, in the case of the America, 
proceeds upon a presumption, that as the trade was, by the 
standing laws of France, even up to that moment, confined 
to French ships, any ship found employed in it must be a 
French ship. The reason in the other case does not rest 
upon this idle presumption, but takes another ground ; for it 
states, that by the reason of the trade in which the vessel 
was employed, she became a French vessel. 

It is manifest that this is no other than the fii'st idea of 
adoption or naturalization, accommodated to the change at- 
tempted to be introduced into the state of things by the ac- 
tual or pretended discontinuance of the special licenses. 
What then is the amount of the doctrine of the seven years' 
war, in the utmost extent which it is possible to ascribe to 
it ? It is in substance no more than this, that as France did 
not, at any period of that war, abandon, or in any degree 
suspend, the principle of colonial monopoly, or the system 
arising out of it, a neutral vessel found in the prosecution of 
the trade, which, according to that principle and that system 
still continuing in force, could only be a French trade and 
open to French vessels, either became, or was legally to be 
presumed to be a French vessel. It cannot be necessary to 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 177 

show that tliis doctrine differs essentially from the princijile 
of the present day ; but even if it were otherwise, the prac- 
tice of that war, whatever it might be, was undoubtedly con- 
trary to that of the war of 1744, and as contrasted with it, 
will not be considered by those who have at all attended to 
the history of these two periods, as entitled to any peculiar 
veneration. The effects of tliat practice were almost wholly 
confined to the Dutch, who had rendered themselves extreme- 
ly obnoxious to Great Britain, by the selfish and pusillanimous 
policy, as it was falsely called, which enabled them during 
the seven years' war to profit of the troubles of the rest of 
Europe. 

In the war of 1744, the neutrality of the Dutch, while 
it continued, had in it nothing of complaisance to France ; 
they furnished from the commencement of hostilities, on 
account of the pragmatic sanction, succors to the confede- 
rates ; declared openly, after a time, in favor of the Queen 
of Hungary ; and finally determined upon and prepared for 
war, by sea and land. Great Britain, of course, had no in- 
ducement in that war to hunt after any hostile principle, by 
the operations of which the trade of the Dutch might be ha- 
rassed, or the advantage of their neutral position, while it 
lasted, defeated. In the war of 1756 she had this induce- 
ment in its utmost strength. Independent of the commer- 
cial rivalry existing between the two nations, the Dutch had 
excited the undisguised resentment of Great Britain, by de- 
clining to furnish against France the succors stipulated by 
treaty ; by constantly supplying France with naval and 
warlike stores, through the medium of a trade systemat- 
ically pursued by the people, and countenanced by the gov- 
ernment ; by granting to France, early in 1757, a free pas- . 
sage through Namur and Maestricht, for the provisions, am- 
munition, and artillery, belonging to the army destined to act 
against the territories of Prussia, in the neighborhood of 
the Low Countries ; and by the indifference with which they 
12 



178 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

saw Nieuport and Ostend surrendered into the hands of 
France, by the court of Vienna, which Great Britain repre- 
sented to he contrary to the Barrier treaty and the treaty of 
Utrecht. Without entering into the sufficiency of these 
grounds of dissatisfaction, which undoubtedly had a great 
influence on the conduct of Great Britain towards the 
Dutch, from 1757 until the peace of 1763, it is manifest 
that this very dissatisfaction, little short of a disposition to 
open war, and frequently on the eve of producing it, takes 
away, in a considerable degree, from the authority of any 
practice to which it may be supposed to have led, as tending 
to establish a rule of the public law of Europe, It may not 
be improj)er to observe too, that the station occupied by 
Great Britain in the seven years' war (as proud a one as 
any country ever did occupy), compared with that of the 
other European powers, was not exactly calculated to make 
the measures which her resentments against Holland or her 
views against France might dictate, peculiarly respectful to 
the general rights of neutrals. In the north, Kussia and 
Sweden were engaged in the confederacy against Prussia, 
and were, of course, entitled to no consideration in this re- 
spect. The government of Sweden was, besides, weak and 
impotent. Denmark, it is, true, took no part in the war, 
but she did not suffer by the practice in question. Besides, 
all these powers combined would have been as notliing 
against the naval strength of Great Britain in 1758. As to 
Spain, she could have no concern in the question, and at 
length became involved in the war on the side of France. 
Upon the whole, in the war of 1756, Great Britain had the 
power to be unjust, and irresistible temptations to abuse it. 
In that of 1744, her power was, perhaps, equally great, but 
every thing was favorable to equity and moderation. The 
example afforded on this subject, therefore, by the first war, 
has far better titles to respect than that furnished by 
the last. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 179 

In the American war the practice and decisions on this 
point, followed those of the war of 1744. 

The question first came before the lords of appeal in Ja- 
nuary, 1782, in the Danish cases of the Tiger, Copenhagen, 
and others, captured in October, 1783, and condemned at 
St. Kitts, in December following. The grounds on which 
the captors relied for condemnation, in the Tiger, as set 
forth at the end of the respondent's printed case, were, 
" for that the ship, having been trading to Cape Francois, 
where none but French ships are allowed to carry on any 
traffic, and having been laden at the same time of the 
capture, with the produce of the French part of the island 
of St. Domingo, put on board at Cape Francois, and both 
ship and cargo taken confessedly coming from hence, 
must (pursuant to precedents in the like cases in the last 
war), to all intents and purposes, be deemed a ship and goods 
belonging to the French, or at least adopted, and natur- 
alized as such." 

In the Copenhagen, the captor's reasons are thus given : 

"1st. Because it is allowed that the ship was destined, 
with her cargo, to the island of Guadaloupe, and no other 
place." 

" 2dly. Because it is contrary to the established rule of 
general law, to admit any netitral ship to go to, and trade 
at, a 23ort belonging to a colony of the enemy, to tohich such 
neutral ship could not have freely traded in time of peace." 

On the 22d of January, 1782, these causes came on for 
hearing before the lords of appeal, who decreed restitution 
in all of them : thus in the most solemn and explicit man- 
ner disavowing and rejecting the pretended rules of the law 
of nations, upon which the captors relied ; the first of which 
was literally borrowed from the doctrine of the war of 1756, 
and the last of which is that very rule on which Great Bri- 
tain now relies. 

It is true, that in these cases the judgment of the lords 



180 LIFE OF WILLliM PINKNEY. 

was pronounced upon one shape only of the colony trade of 
France, as carried on by neutrals ; that is to say, a trade 
between the colony of France and that of the country of 
the neutral shipper. But, as no distinction was supposed 
to exist, in point of principle, between the different modifi- 
cations of the trade, and as the judgment went upon gene- 
ral grounds applicable to the entire subject, we shall not be 
thought to overrate its effect and extent, when we represent 
it as a complete rejection both of the doctrine of the seven 
years' war, and of that modern principle by which it has 
been attempted to replace it. But at any rate, the subse- 
quent decrees of the same high tribunal did go that length. 
Without enumerating the cases of various descriptions, in- 
volving the legaHty of the trade in all its modes, which were 
favorably adjudged by the lords of appeal after the Ameri- 
can peace, it will be suificient to mention the case of the 
Vervagting, decided by them in 1785 and 1786. This was 
the case of a Danish ship laden with a cargo of drygoods 
and provisions, with which she was bound on a voyage from 
Marseilles to Martinique and Cape Francois, where she was 
to take in for Europe a return cargo of West India produce. 
The ship was not proceeded against, but the cargo, which 
was claimed for merchants of Ostend, was condemned as 
enemy's property (as in truth it was) by the vice-admiralty 
of Antigua, subject to the payment of freight, j^^ro rata 
itineris, or rather for the whole of the outward voyage. On 
api^eal, as to the cargo, the lords of appeal, on the 8th of 
March, 1785, reversed the condemnation, and ordered fur- 
ther proof of the property to be produced within three 
months. On the 28th of March, 1786, no further proof 
having been exhibited, and the proctor for the claimants 
daclaring that he should exhibit none, the lords condemned 
the cargo, and on the same day reversed the decree below, 
giving freight, pro rata itineris (from which the neutral 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 181 

master had appealed), and decreed freight generally, and the 
costs of the ai3peal. 

It is impossible that a judicial opinion could go more 
conclusively to the whole question on the colony trade than 
this ; for it not only disavows the pretended illegality of 
neutral interpositions in that trade, even directly between 
France and her colonies (the most exceptionable form, it is 
said, in which that interposition could present itself), it not 
only denies that property engaged in such a trade is, on that 
account, liable to confiscation (inasmuch as, after having 
reversed the condemnation of the cargo, pronounced below, 
it proceeds afterwards to condemn it merely for loant of 
fuHlier proof as to the propertTj), but it holds that the trade 
is so unquestionably lawful to neutrals, as not even to put 
in jeopardy the claim to freight for that jiart of the voyage 
which had not yet begun, and which the party had not yet 
put himself in a situation to begin. The force of this, and 
the other British decisions produced by the American war, 
will not be avoided, by suggesting that there was any thing 
peculiarly favorable in the time when, or the manner in which, 
France opened her colony trade to neutrals on that occasion. 
Something of that sort, however, has been said. AVe find 
the following language in a very learned opinion on this 
point : " It is certainly true, that in the last war (the Ame- 
rican war), many decisions took place which then pronounced, 
that such a trade between France and her colonies was not 
considered as an unneutral commerce ; but under what cir- 
cumstances ? It was understood that France, in opening 
her colonies during the war, declared, that this was not done 
with a temporary view relative to the war, but on a general 
permanent purjfose of altering her colonial system, and of 
admitting foreign vessels, universally, and at all times to a 
participation of that commerce ; taking that to be the fact 
(however suspicious its commencement might be, during the 
actual existence of a war), there was no ground to say, that 



182 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

neutrals were not caiTying on a commerce as ordinary as any 
other in which they could be engaged ; and therefore in the 
case of the Vervagting, and in many other succeeding cases, 
the lords decreed payment of freight to the neutral ship- 
owner. It is fit to be remembered on this occasion, that the 
conduct of France evinced how little dependence can be 
placed upon explanations of measures adopted during the 
pressure of war ; for, hardly was the ratification of the peace 
assigned, when she returned to her ancient system of colonial 
monopoly," 

We answer to all this, that, to refer the decision of the 
lords, in the Vervagting, and other succeeding cases, to the 
reason here assigned, is to accuse that high tribunal of act- 
ing upon a confidence which has no example, in a singularly 
incredible declaration (if, indeed, such a declaration was 
ever made), after the utter falsehood of it had been, as this 
learned opinion does itself inform us, unequivocally and no- 
toriously ascertained. 

We have seen that the Vervagting was decided by the 
lords in 1785 and 1786, at least two years after France had, 
as we are told, " returned to her ancient system of colonial 
monopoly," and when of course the supposed assertion, of an 
intended permanent abandonment of that system, could not 
be permitted to produce any legal consequence. 

We answer further, that if this alleged declaration was 
in fact made (and we must be allowed to say, that we have 
found no trace of it out of the opinion above recited), it 
never was put into such a formal and authentic shape as to 
be the fair subject of judicial notice. 

It is not contained in the French arrets of that day, 
where only it would be proper to look for it; and we are not 
referred to any other document proceeding from the govern- 
ment of France, in which it is said to appear. There does 
not, in a word, seem to have been any thing which an en- 
lightened tribunal could be supposed capable of considering 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 183 

as a pledge on the part of France, that she had resolved 
upon or even meditated the extravagant change in her colo- 
nial system which she is said, in this opinion, to have been 
understood to announce to the world. But even if the dec- 
laration in question was actually made, and that too with 
all possible solemnity, still it Avould be difficult to persuade 
any thinking man that the sincerity of such a declaration 
was in any degree confided in, or that any person in any 
country could regard it in any other light than as a mere ar- 
tifice, that could give no right which would not equally well 
exist without it. Upon the whole, it is manifestly impracti- 
cable to rest the decisions of the lords of appeal, in and af- 
ter the American war, upon any dependence placed in this 
declaration, of which there is no evidence that it ever was 
made, which it is certain was not authentically or formally 
made ; which, however made, was not, and could not be be- 
lieved at any time, far less in 1785 and 1786, when its false- 
hood had been unquestionably proved by the public and un- 
disguised conduct of its supposed authors, in direct opposi- 
tion to it. That Sir James 3Iarriot, who sat in the high 
court of admiralty of Great Britain during the greater part 
of the late war, did not consider these doctrines as standing 
upon this ground is evident ; for, notwithstanding that in 
the year 1756 he was the most zealous and perhaps able ad- 
vocate for the condemnation of the Dutch ships engaged in 
the colony trade of France, yet, upon the breaking out of 
the late war, he relied upon the decisions in the American 
war as authoritatively settling the legality of that trade, and 
decreed accordingly. 

If, as a more plausible answer to these decisions, consid- 
ered in the light of authorities, than that which we have 
just examined, it should be said that they ought rather to 
be viewed as reluctant sacrifices to policy, or even to neces- 
sity, under circumstances of particular difficulty and peril, 
than as an expression of the deliberate opinion of the lords 



184 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET, 

of appeal, or of the government of Great Britain ; on the 
matter of right, it might perhaps be sufficient to reply, that 
if the armed neutrahty coupled with the situation of Great 
Britijin as a party to the war did in any degree compel these 
decisions, we might also expect to find at the same era some 
relaxation on the part of that country relative to the doc- 
trine of contraband, upon which the convention of the armed 
neutrality contained the most direct stipulations which the 
northern powers were particularly interested to enforce. Yet 
such was not the fact. But in addition to this, and other 
considerations of a similar description, it is natural to inquire 
why it happened that, if the lords of appeal were satisfied 
that Great Britain possessed the right in question, they re- 
corded and gave to the world a series of decisions against it, 
founded not upon British orders of council, gratuitously re- 
laxing what was still asserted to be the strict right (as in the 
late war), but upon general principles of public law. How- 
ever prudence might have required (although there is no 
reason to believe it did require) an abstinence on the part of 
Great Britain, from the extreme exercise of the right she 
had been supposed to claim, still it could not be necessary 
to give to the mere forbearance of a claim, the stamp and 
character of a formal admission that the claim itself was il- 
legal and unjust. In the late war, as often as the British 
o-overnment wished to concede and relax, from whatever mo- 
the, on the subject of the colony trade of her opponents, an 
order of council was resorted to, setting forth the nature of 
the concession or relaxation upon which the courts of prize 
were afterwards to found their sentences ; and, undoubtedly, 
sentences so passed, cannot, in any fair reasoning, be consid- 
ered as deciding more than that the order of council is oblig- 
atory on the courts, whose sentences they are. But the de- 
crees of the lords of appeal, in and after the American war, 
are not of this description ; since there existed no order of 
council on the subject of them ; and of course they are, and 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 185 

ought to be, of the highest weight and authority against 
Great Britain, on the questions involved in and adjudged by 
them. 

This solemn reunciation of the principle in question, in 
the face of the whole world, by her highest tribunal in mat- 
ters of prize, reiterated in a succession of decrees, down to 
the year 1786, and afterwards, is powerfully confirmed by 
the acquiescence of Great Britain, during the first most im- 
portant and active period of the late war, in the free and 
unlimited prosecution by neutrals of the whole colony trade 
of France ; she did, indeed, at last prohibit that trade by 
an instruction unprecedented in the annals of maritime dep- 
redation ; but the revival of her discarded rule was charac- 
terized by such circumstances of iniquity and violence, as 
rather to heighten, by the effect of contrast, the veneration 
of mankind for the past justice of her tribunals. 

The world has not forgotten the instruction to which we 
allude, or the enormities by which its true character was de- 
veloped. Produced in mystery, at a moment when universal 
confidence in the integrity of her government had brought 
upon the ocean a prey of vast value and importance ; sent 
abroad to the different naval stations, with such studied se- 
crecy that it would almost seem to have been intended to 
make an experiment how far law and honor could be outraged 
by a nation proverbial for respecting both ; the heralds, by 
whom it was first announced, were the commanders of her 
commissioned cruisers, who at the same instant carried it 
into effect with every circumstance of aggravation, if of such 
an act there can be an aggrav^ation. Upon such conduct 
there was but one sentiment. It was condemned by reason 
and justice. It was condemned by that law which flows 
from and is founded upon them ; it was condemned, and will 
for ever continue to be condemned, by the universal voice of 
the civilized world. Great Britain has made amends, with 
the good faith which belongs to her councils, for that act of 



186 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

injustice and oppression ; and your memorialists have a strong 
confidence that the late departure from the usual course of 
her policy will be followed by a like disposition to atonement 
and reparation. The relations which subsist between Great 
Britain and the United States rest upon the basis of recipro- 
cal interests, and your memorialists see in those interests, as 
well as in the justice of the British government and the firm- 
ness of our own, the best reasons to expect a satisfactory 
answer to their complaints, and a speedy abandonment of 
that system by which they have been lately harassed and 
alarmed. 

Your memorialists will not trespass upon your time with 
a recital of the various acts by which our coasts, and even 
our ports and harbors, have been converted into scenes of 
violence and depradation ; by which the security of our trade 
and property has been impaired ; the rights of our territory 
invaded ; the honor of our country humiliated and insulted ; 
and our gallant countrymen oppressed and persecuted. They 
feel it to be unnecessary to ask that the force of the nation 
should be employed in repelluig and chastizing the law- 
less freebooters who have dared to spread their ravages even 
beyond the seas which form the principal theatre of their 
piractical exertions, and to infest our shores with their irre- 
gular and ferocious hostility. 

These are outrages which have pressed themselves in a 
peculiar manner upon the notice of our government, and 
cannot have failed to excite its indignation, and a correspond- 
ent disposition to prevent and redress them. 

Such is the view which your memorialists have taken, in 
this anxious crisis of our public afiairs, of subjects which ap- 
pear to them, in an alarming degree, to afi'ect their country 
and its commerce, and to involve high questions of national 
honor and interest, of public law and individual rights, which 
imperiously demand discussion and adjustment. They do 
not presume to point out the measures which these great 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 187 

subjects may be supposed to call for. The means of redress 
for the past and security for the future are respectfully, con- 
fidently submitted to your wisdom ; but your memorialists 
cannot forbear to indulge a hope, which they would aban- 
don with deep reluctance, that they may yet be found in 
amicable explanations with those who have ventured to in- 
flict A\Tongs upon us, and to advance unjust pretensions to 
our prejudice. 

Baltimore, Jan. 21s^, 1806. 



188 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 



FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. 



FKOM MK. PINKNEY TO MB. MADISON. 
[private.] "London, October, lOth 1807. 

" Dear Sir : — Mr. Monroe will doubtless sufficiently ex- 
plain the subject of this letter ; but it seems, notwithstand- 
ing, to be proper that I should trouble you with a very brief 
explanation of it myself. 

" This government having determined to send a special 
envoy to the United States upon the subject of Mr. Monroe's 
late instructions, and it being probable (although not avowed) 
that this envoy would have ulterior powers to treat upon all 
the topics which affect the relations of the two countries, 
Mr. Monroe expressed a wish to return without delay to the 
United States, and to leave with me the affairs of our coun- 
try in quality of Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. 
So far as respected the business of the ordinary legation, 
there was undoubtedly, a difficulty of form, if not of sub- 
stance, in the way of its coming into my hands in any other 
than the inadmissible character of a mere Charge cV Affaires, 
My credentials as Mr. Monroe's successor, expired with the 
session of the Senate next following their date, and had not 
been renewed ; and my commission as Minister Extraordinary 
gave only limited powers for specified objects. It appeared 
to be my duty, however, in case it should not be unaccepta- 
ble to the British government to communicate with me in 
the event of Mr. Monroe's departure, as if I were regularly 
accredited as the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United 
States, to consent on my part to such an arrangement, as 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 189 

being tnore eligible in the present conjuncture than the ap- 
pointment of a CJiarge d' Affaires. Mr. Monroe accordingly 
wrote, with my approbation, a note to Mr. Canning to that 
effect, to which some personal explanations were added, and 
received a reply, of which a copy is inclosed, adopting the 
arrangement proposed. 

" You will perceive that, in lending myself to this step, 
I have ventured to infer the approbation of the President 
from what certainly does not express it. It would have 
been much more agreeable to me that a Charge cV Affaires 
should be left, and that I should remain in my character of 
Commissioner Extraordinary until the government of the 
United States should have an opportunity of taking its own 
course. In that mode I should have been relieved from all 
embarrassment ; but thinking that the public interest re- 
quired the course actually a'dopted, and that it was, moreover, 
that which was likely to fulfil the expectations of the Presi- 
dent, I did not consider myself at liberty to consult my own 
inclinations. 

" The concluding expressions of Mr. Canning's note af- 
ford me an oj^portunity of saying that, in awaiting here the 
orders of the President, I am ready to return or to remain, 
as he shall think the interest of our country requires. I beg 
you to be assured that as I accepted the trust which called 
me abroad with no selfish motive (although I felt how much 
I was honored by it), I should regret that any indulgent 
feeling towards me should in any degree restrain the Presi- 
dent from promoting, in the way he thinks best, that which 
I know is the constant object of his care — the general good. 
Neither the unfeigned veneration m which I hold his charac- 
ter, nor the grateful recollection which I have not for a mo- 
ment ceased to cherish of the manner in which he has been 
80 good' as to distinguish me, will suffer any abatement, 
although he should think fit to place some other than myself 
in the station which he once destined for me. I am quite 



190 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

sure that whatever shall be done, the manner of it will be 
liberal and kind ; and trusting, as I do most confidently, 
that I shall cany out of the public service, leave it when I 
may, the jDure name with which I entered it, and the un- 
abated good opinion of the government I have been proud to 
serve — the rest is of Httle imjiortance." 

In a letter, dated the 21st December, 1807, he says : 
" I ought not, perhaps, to have been quite so scrupulous 
of writing to you on public affairs during the existence of the 
joint mission ; but you will do me the justice to believe that 
the scruple w\as sincerely felt, and yielded to frequently with 
great reluctance. You will now have reason, perhaps, to 
complain of me for writing rather too much than too little, 
I shall, however, continue in general to mark my letters 
"private," by which their freedom and frequency will be 
rendered innocent at least, if they shall not be useful. 

" You will find that I have been careful to send you by 
every opportunity, newspapers, pamphlets, &c., since Mr. 
Monroe's departure ; as indeed I sometimes ventured to do 
before. May I beg that those from the United States may 
be sent with more regularity ? I ought to remark, that a 
pamphlet, favorable to British pretensions, and decrying our 
own, is no sooner published in America than it finds its way 
across the Atlantic, gets into general circulation here, and is 
quoted, praised, and sometimes republished ; whereas those 
of an opposite description either do not arrive at all, or come 
too late. Some pamphlets, of a most pernicious kind, having 
a British character strongly stamped upon them, have lately 
been imported from the United States, and advertised for 
republication by Enghsh booksellers. I should have been 
glad to see the antidote accompanying the poison. I am a 
sincere friend to peace with all the world, while it can be 
preserved with honor : but the strange productions to which 
I allude not only dishonor or betray the cause of our country. 



LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNEY. 191 

but tend, if read in Great Britain, to produce a temper un- 
friendly to accommodation ; and thus, while they inveigh 
against war, contribute to produce it. The effect of these 
works is greatly assisted by the wonderful ignorance which 
has prevailed, and still prevails, among all ranks of people 
in Great Britain, relative to the reciprocal conduct of France 
and the United States towards each other. The President's 
message has, for that reason only, been almost universally 
misapprehended. Even our best friends have mistaken and 
complained of it. In the course of my private intercourse 
(as well with the opposition as with the friends of ministers) 
I have done all that was consistent with discretion, to give 
more correct notions on the subject ; but the press only can 
remove completely the prevailing error, and to that expedient 
it would be improper that I should have recourse. Some of 
the most distinguished men in England, however, have been 
referred to General Armstrong's letter to the French Minis- 
ter of Marine, and the answer of that Minister, as published 
in the American newspapers during the last winter, and to 
our convention with France, and may, perhaps, do what I 
cannot. Their own newspapers prove in part the practice 
(even now) under the French decree of November, 1806 ; 
and it is well known to many persons here (notwithstanding 
the general ignorance), that France has never acted, and 
does not at this time act, upon the parts of the decree 
which might seem intended for external operation, as mari- 
time rules. 

" There are rumors of a schism in the cabinet (relative 
to the Catholics) ; but I am told by a member of the late 
administration that it will come to nothing." 



192 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 



MR, PINKNET TO MR. MADISON. 
(Private.) "London, January 1th, 1808. 

" Dear Sir : — I inclose a duplicate of my public letter of 
tlie 29th, and my private letter of the 31st, of last month, 
to wliich I am now able to add a copy of the French decree 
of the 23d (not, as I had supposed, the 25th) of Novem- 
ber. This was sent to me by a Mr, Mitchell, who was pro- 
ceeding to the United States (as he writes me) in an Amer- 
ican vessel (the Ocean), with dispatches for you, from Gen- 
eral Armstrong, when the vessel was captured by the Narcis- 
sus frigate, and sent into Plymouth, upon the ground that 
she took in a part of her cargo in France {salt for ballast) 
after the day limited in the last British orders in council. I 
have thought it proper to interest myself informally in the 
case of this vessel, and I have assurance that it shall receive 
the promptest attention. I have advised Mr. Mitchell to 
wait a few days before he determines upon taking his passage 
in another vessel for America, by which he would be likely 
to lose time. 

" I sent you some days ago a newspaper containing the 
French retaliating decree, dated at Milan, the 25th of De- 
cember. Those which are now forwarded contain the same 
decree ; and you will find by the papers of this morning that 
it has been followed up by another. This country has ventured 
upon an extraordinary struggle with France, by which she 
has every thing to lose and nothing to gain. The gross im- 
policy of the late orders of council (to say nothing of their 
insulting tone, and their injustice to neutral states), begins 
to develope itself, and will soon be manifest to all. I am 
greatly deceived if it will not in a few weeks be matter of 
surprise among all descriptions of people here, that a manu- 
facturing and commercjal nation like Great Britain, could 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 193 

have exjiected any thing but disaster and ruin from such a 
measure. 

" Hopes are entertained in England, that our non-iiD- 
portation act will have been repealed upon the arrival of 
intelligence of an intended extraordinary mission from this 
country ! That law passed upon unquestionable grounds of 
policy and justice; and, although it has been heretofore 
properly suspended, I do not see how our honor could fail to 
become a mere shadow, if it should now be abandoned, even 
for a time. The mission of Mr. Eose would not seem to 
justify even the suspension of it, until the nature and ex- 
tent of his powers were known ; and after they were known, 
it could justify nothing. He has no power to arrange on the 
toj)ic of impressment, the great foundation of the non-im- 
portation act ; and his government has not only reasserted 
its obnoxious pretension on that subject in a public procla- 
mation, but has even gone the length of declaring that it 
cannot consent to impair it. The unredressed outrages of 
Love, Whitby, &-c., afford no indifbement to repeal a law 
deliberately passed, with the clear approbation of the Amer- 
ican people, when all the motives to its passage have received 
augmented force. But the late orders of council would 
make the repeal, or even the suspension, of the non-impor- 
tation act, particularly unfortunate. The time when they 
were issued — the arrogant claim of maritime dominion, which 
they suppose and execute — and the contempt which they 
manifest, in the face of the world, for the rights and the 
power of our country, make them altogether the most offen- 
sive act that can be laid to the charge of any government. 
The least appearance of a disposition to submit to such an 
attempt will encourage to further aggressions, until our na- 
tional spirit will be lost in an habitual sense of humiliation, 
our character known only to be despised, and our rights con- 
sidered, like those of the petty states of Europe, the sport 
and the prov of the strongest. There is an opinion here, 
13 



194 LIFE OF "WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

that we are likely to become a divided people, when a rap- 
ture with Great Britain is in question ; but this opinion is 
founded upon such American pubKcations as those in a Bos- 
ton paper, signed " Pacificus,'' and upon some pamphlets 
and private letters of a similar character, and will, undoubt- 
edly, be gloriously falsified, if there should be occasion, 
by the patriotism of our people in every quarter of the 
Union." 



MR. PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON, 
("Private.") "Londox, April 25tk, 1808. 

" Dear Sir ; — Mr. Rose has sent me your private letter 
of the 21st of March ; for which I am greatly indebted to 
you. I know and sincerely regret, the state of your health j 
and therefore beg you not to make any effort (beyond what 
may be absolutely necessary for the public service) to write 
to me. I will take for granted your good will ; and, if you 
will suffer me to do so, will presume upon your esteem. Of 
course, I shall not be ready to think myself neglected if I 
hear from you but seldom ; and shall not relax in my com- 
munications because indisposition, a press of business, or 
some other reason, prevents you from giving much attention 
to me or my letters. I will only stipulate for an occasional 
acknowledgment of them, so that I may know what have 
been received and what have been miscarried. I need not 
say that as much more as may be consistent with your con- 
venience, will be in the highest degree acceptable to me. My 
commissions and credentials, have not yet come to hand. 
They are perhaps in the Packet, or in the Osage, or in both. 

" I feel very sensibly the delicacy and kindness of the 
assurances which you are so good as to give me, that the pur- 
pose of nominating me to the permanent Legation here was 
never for a moment suspended in the mind of the President. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 196 

I am the more gratitied by this evidence of the continuing 
confidence of the President, because I have a firm persua- 
sion that he will never have cause to repent it. I beg you 
to say for me, to him, that I am truly grateful for this dis- 
tinction. 

"I inclose another copy of the instruction to British 
cruisers, mentioned and inclosed in my last. Having been 
confined by indisposition for some days, I cannot yet vouch 
that it has actually been issued ; but all information concurs 
to make it sufiiciently certain. There is something ex- 
tremely injudicious in this measure, to say no worse of it. I 
do not suppose that we ought to consider it (or rather to ap- 
pear to consider it) as offensive to us ; but, undoubtedly, an 
attempt, in the face of the world, thus to set the people 
against the government and its laws, is an ungracious act, 
and rests upon a bad principle. The effect of this wise con- 
trivance in America, can only be, to add to the vigilance of 
the government in guarding the law, and to render more 
conspicuous the just pride and the public spirit of our citi- 
zens, by an open disdain of all foreign allurements to break 
it. Such an instruction manifestly reposes upon a foul 
libel on our patriotism, and is such a sneer upon our honor, 
national and individual, as should give us virtue, if we had 
it not before, to resist the temptation which it offers to the 
worst of our passions. 

" P. S. — I have just received my credentials and your 
letter of the 8th of March, by the Packet, and have sent 
the customary note to Mr. Canning, requesting an interview 
for the purpose of presenting them. 

" The incident you mention was not the most fortunate 
that could have happened, but I hope it will produce no bad 
effect here. I will endeavor to set it to rights without haz- 
arding any thing. The freedom with which I hold it to be 
my indisputable duty to write to you, renders the delicate 
caution which the President uses on such occasions, peculiarly 



196 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 

proper in my case. But if he should at any time think that 
the interests of the state require that publicity should be 
given to any of my dispatches, I do not (because I ought 
not to) ask to be spared ; although certainly the publication 
of some of them, during my stay in this country, would 
cause me most serious embarrassment. 

" My course will continue to be, to write with candor, 
frequency and fidelity, and to throw myself upon the kindness 
and wisdom of those to whom my correspondence belongs, 
I shall do so without doubt or fear of any kind." 



ME. PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON, 

"London, April 11th, 1808. 

" Sir : — I have the honor to inform you, that I have this 
day had an audience of the King and presented my creden- 
tials. 

" My reception was particularly kind and gracious ; and 
it is my duty to say, that every evidence, which such an oc- 
casion could admit, was afforded, of a desire on the part of 
the King to continue in friendship with us." 



MR. PINKNEY TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 

"London, April 2Sth, 1808. 

. " Sir : — I will trespass on you for a few moments only , 
for I have very little to say, and that little might have been 
said, with at least equal propriety, through another. 

" I thank you, sir, for the fieeling attention which, with 
your accustomed goodness, you have uniformly shown to the 
interests of my character, under circumstances which give 
to that attention even more than its usual value. I thank 
you, especially, for the recent proof which you have thought 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 197 

fit to afford me of undiminished confidence, in a season when 
that confidence, at all times flattering, does me peculiar 
honor. 

" Your conduct towards me has been every thing that is 
delicate and generous and kind, and I should blush for my- 
self, if I did not feel that it had made an impression upon 
my heart which neither time nor accident can efface. I en- 
treat you to be assured, sir, that it has made such an im- 
pression ; and that the veneration in which I have always 
held your virtues and your talents will hereafter be accom- 
panied and enlivened by gratitude and attachment. 

" Will you suffer me to avail myself of this opportunity 
to join to the demonstrations of affectionate regret, which 
you have received from the different quarters of the Union, 
the feeble expression of my own, that your country is about 
to lose the benefit of your services in a station, upon which, 
although in itself the most exalted to which the virtuous 
hopes of a citizen can aspire, your patriotism and wisdom 
have reflected lustre. You ^vill indeed, carry with you from 
that station all that can give a charm to retirement, the love 
and veneration of your fellow-citizens, and an approving con- 
science ; but it is natural that he who can so retire, should 
be given up with reluctance by the world to the claims of 
age or even of constitutional principle." 



MR. PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON. 
("Private.") "London, 2[ay lOth, 1808. 

" Dear Sir : — I received yesterday, after I had finished 
my public dispatch, a letter from Mr. Otto, who went lately 
to Holland, and promised wliile there to give me such intel- 
ligence of passing events as might be in his power. I inclose 
a copy of that letter. It leaves little room to doubt that an 
obnoxious decree has been recently issued at Bayonne by the 



198 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

French govern ment, reinforcing its former anti-commercial 
edicts, and superadding a provision of increased rigor. The 
decree itself (of which we had an ambiguous and discredit- 
ed rumor some days ago), has not yet found its way to 
England. 

" I have hardly any thing else worth saying to you. A 
desire to he friends with us seems now to be almost universal 
here, and it may I think be safely assumed that it pervades 
the Cabinet. I believe that the King is so disposed. What 
will be the practical result of that disposition, with reference 
to particular measures and pretensions Avhich touch most 
nearly our honor and prosperity, is far more doubtful. The 
hostile spirit against France is at its height. Animosity is 
exasperated by well-founded alarm ; and whatever promises 
annoyance on the one hand, or security on the other, may 
not easily be yielded to the wish, however strong, to concili- 
ate us. The nation is with the government in that respect ; 
at least such is the appearance. 

" There has been sufficient time for sober reflection, to 
enable the most intemperate advocate for war with America 
to discover the rashness of his early opinions. The firm at- 
titude taken with such provident foresight by the govern- 
ment of the United States — the combined operation of our 
embargo, of the other measures of our legislature and execu- 
tive, of their own orders in council, and the French decrees 
— the discussions (through the Liverpool papers and others) 
by which the vital importance of American connection and 
intercourse (and even of that American trade which their 
late orders would injudiciously crush) has been demonstrated 
to all — the still progressive march of the power of France, 
and the new difficulties and perils which, with a persevering 
fertility, it produces or threatens — would have created, if it 
did not exist before, an anxiety to avoid a rupture with us. 
But if we continue at peace with France (as, if it be possi- 
ble without dishonor, I trust we shall), they will recede here 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 199 

on certain points with infinite difficulty and reluctance, if 
they recede at all. They will not go to war if they can help 
it ; but it is to be doubted whether they are prepared to do 
what may be indispensable to the re-establishment of inter- 
rupted friendship. They will be content to leave things as 
they are, and to trust to the influence of events ; and a hope 
^vill perhaps be indulged that we cannot persevere in the 
embargo — that, weary of our system of self-denial, pressed by 
French aggression, and alarmed by the wide-spread domina- 
tion and restless ambition of France, we shall at length be 
induced to acquiesce in the principles and practices of Great 
Britain (which must necessarily produce a contest with her 
enemy), or at once to make common cause with her against 
that enemy. What is to be the system of France, with re- 
gard to us, I know not ; but it is sufficiently obvious 1^at in 
the angry struggles of these rival powers, our rights are for- 
gotten by both, and that it requires all the tried wisdom 
and firmness of our government, and all the virtue of our 
people, to conduct us in safety and with honor through the 
tempests that agitate and afflict the world. 

" My health has suffered a little since my return to Eng- 
land, and I am disposed to ascribe it to a continued confine- 
ment to London, from which I have not been absent a single 
day for almost two years. I have some thoughts, therefore 
(but am by no means determined upon it), of going to Chel- 
tenham, for a short time, after the birthday. I shall in tluit 
case leave a person in my house to attend to all ordinary 
business, to forward to me letters, &c.; and shall come to 
town myself as occasion may require. My son, who has 
hitherto acted as my secretary, I send home in the Osage to 
take his station in a countino^-house." 



200 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 



MR. PINKNEY TO MR, MADISON. 

"London, June 5th, 1808. 

" Sir : — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of 
your letter of the 4th of April, by Mr. Bethune, together 
with the printed, and other copies of Papers mentioned 
in it. 

" I am to have an interview with Mr. Canning in a few 
days (which he will agree to consider extra-official), in the 
course of which I intend to press, by every argument in 
my power, the propriety of their abandoning immediately 
their orders in council, and of proposing by a minister in 
America (the only becoming course, as you very properly 
suggest), reparation for the outrage on the Chesapeake. I 
shall, for obvious reasons, do this informally as my own act. 

" Your unanswerable reply to Mr. Erskine's letter of the 
23d of February, has left nothing to be urged against the 
orders in council upon the score of right, and there may be 
room to hope that the effect, which that reply can hardly 
have failed to produce upon ministers, as well by its tone 
as by its reasoning, will, if followed up, become, under ac- 
tual circumstances, decisive. 

" The discussion, which Mr. Eose's preliminary in the af- 
fair of the Chesapeake has undergone, gives encouragement 
to an expectation, that this government will not now be 
backward to relinquish it, and to renew their overture of sat- 
isfaction in a way, more consistent with reason, and more 
likely to produce a just and honorable result. 

** You may be assured that I will not commit our gov- 
ernment by any thing I shall do or say, and that if I cannot 
make things better than they are, I will not make them 
worse. My view of the course which our honor and interests 
have required, and still require, is, as you know, in precise 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 201 

conformity with that of the President ; but, if it were oth- 
erwise, I should make his view, and not my own, the rule of 
my conduct/' 



MR. riNKNET TO MR. MADISON. 

"London, August 4:th, 1808. 

« Sir : — The St. Michael arrived at Falmouth, on Thurs- 
day the 14th of last month, after a passage of 8 days from 
L'Orient. Captain Kenyon dehvered me on Wednesday, the 
20th (upon my arrival from Brighton, where I had been for 
a short time, on account of my health), your letters of the 
30th of April, and your private letter of the 1st of May, 
together with newspapers, printed copies of the embargo 
act and its supplements, and of papers laid before Congress 
at their last session. Mr. Hall brought me a letter from 
General Armstrong of the 26th of June (of which I send 
an extract), and Mr. Upson brought me a private letter 
from him, with the following postscript of the 1st of July, 
' An order has been received from Bayonne to condemn 
eight other of our ships, &c.' 

" On Friday the 22d of July I had an interview with 
Mr. Canning, and renewed my efforts to obtain a revocation 
of the British orders of January and November, 1807, and of 
the other orders dependent upon them. I have already in- 
formed you in my private letter of the 29th of June that 
on the morning of its date I had a long conversation with 
Mr. Canning, which had rendered it somewhat probable that 
the object mentioned in your letter of the 30th of April (of 
which I had received a duplicate by the packet) would be 
accomplished if I should authorize the expectation which that 
letter suggests ; but that some days must elapse before I 
could speak with any thing hke certainty on the subject : 
and I have mentioned in another private letter (of the 10th 



202 LIFE or WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

of July) that it was understood between Mr. Canning and 
myself that another interview should take place soon after 
the prorogation of Parliament. In effect, however, Mr. Can- 
ning was not prepared to see me again until the 22d of July, 
after I had been recalled to London by the arrival of the St, 
Michael, and had, in consequence, reminded him of our ar- 
rangement by a private note. 

" In the interview of the 29tli of June I soon found it neces- 
sary to throw out an intimation, that the power, vested in 
the President by Congress, to suspend the embargo act and 
its supplements, would be exercised as regarded Great Bri- 
tain, if their orders were repealed as regarded the United 
States. 

" To have urged the revocation upon the mere ground 
of strict right, or of general policy, and there to have left 
the subject, when I was authorized to place it upon grounds 
infinitely stronger, would have been, as it appeared to me, to 
stop short of my duty. Your letters to Mr. Erskine (which 
Mr. Canning has read and considered) had exhausted the 
first of these grounds, and endless discussions here, in every 
variety of form, in and out of Parliament, had exhausted the 
second. There w^as, besides, no objection of any force to my 
availing myself Avithout delay of the powerful inducements 
which the intimation in question was likely to furnish to 
Great Britain to abandon her late system ; and it seemed to 
be certain that, by delaying to jDresent these inducements to 
Mr. Canning's consideration, I should not only lose much 
time, but finally give to my conduct a disingenuous air, 
which, while it would be foreign to the views and sentiments 
of the President, could hardly fail to make a very unfavor- 
able impression upon the mind of Mr. Canning and his col- 
leagues, I thought, moreover, that, if I should reserve the 
suggestion for a late state of our discussions, it would be 
made to wear the appearance of a concession reluctantly ex- 
torted, rather than of what it was, the spontaneous result of 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 



203 



the characteristic frankness and honorable policy of our gov- 
ernment, 

"The intimation once made, a complete development 
of its natural consequences, if properly acted upon, followed 
of course ; and, taking advantage of the latitude afforded by 
the informal nature of a mere conversation, I endeavored to 
make that development as strong an appeal as, consistently 
with truth and honor, I could (and there was no necessity 
to do more) to the justice and the prudence of this govern- 
ment. It was not possible, however, that Mr. Canning could 
require to be assisted by my explanations. It was plain, 
upon their own principles, that they could not equitably 
persevere in their orders in council upon the foundation of 
an imputed acquiescence on our part in French invasions of 
our neutral rights, when it was become (if it was not always) 
apparent, that this imputation was completely and in all 
respects an error — when it was manifest that these orders, 
by letting loose upon our right a more destructive and offen- 
sive persecution than it was in the power of France to main- 
tain, interposed between us and France, furnished answers 
to our remonstrances against her decrees and pretexts for 
those decrees, and stood in the way of that very resistance 
to these which Great Britain affected to inculcate as a duty 
at the moment when she was taking the most effectual steps 
to embarrass and confound it ; and when it was also manifest 
that a revocation of those orders would, if not attended or 
followed by a revocation of the decrees of France, place us 
at issue with that power, and result in a precise opposition 
by the United States to such parts of her anti-commercial 
edicts as it became us to repel. 

" In a prudential view any explanations seemed stiU less 
to be required. Nothing could be more clear than that if 
Great Britain revoked her orders, and entitled herself to a 
suspension of the embargo, her object (if it were any thing 
short of the establishment and practical support of an ex- 



204 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

elusive dominion over the seas) must, in some mode or other, 
be accomplished ; whether France followed her example or 
not. In the first case the avowed purjDose of the British 
orders would be fulfilled, and commerce would resume its ac- 
customed prosperity and expansion. In the last, the just 
resistance of the United States (more efficacious than that of 
the British orders) to French irregularities and aggressions, 
would be left to its fair operation (of which it was impos- 
sible to mistake the consequences), and in the mean time 
the commercial intercourse between the United States and 
Great Britain, being revived, would open the way for a 
return to good understanding, and in the end for an adjust- 
ment of all their differences. 

" These, and many other reflections of a similiar tendency 
(which I forbear to repeat), could not have escaped the pene- 
tration of Mr. Canning, if they had not been suggested to 
him in considerable detail. But, whatever might be their 
influence upon his mind, he certainly did not pronounce any 
opinion ; and what he said consisted principally of inquiries 
with a \dew to a more accurate comprehension of my purpose. 
He asked if I thought of taking a more formal course than 
I was now pursuing ; but immediately remarked that he pre- 
sumed I did not ; for that the course I had adopted was un- 
doubtedly well suited to the occasion. I told him that I 
was so entirely persuaded that the freedom of conversation 
was so much better adapted to the nature of our subject and 
so much more likely to conduct us to a beneficial result than 
the constraint and formality of written communication, 
which usually grew into protracted discussion and always 
produced embarrassment when there was any thing of deli- 
cacy in the topics, that I had not intended to present my note. 

" The interview (in the progress of which some other 
points were incidentally touched upon, as mentioned in my 
private letter of the 29th of June) did not authorize any very 
confident opinion that Mr. Canning approved of what had 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 205 

now for the first time been suggested to him ; and still less 
could it warrant any anticipation of the final opinion of his 
government. But the manner in which my communication 
was received, and the readiness shown by Mr. Canning to 
proceed in the mode which was peculiarly favorable to my 
object, connected with the reasonableness of the object itself, 
induced me to think it rather probable that the issue woidd 
be satisfactory. 

" The interview of the 22d of July was far from producing 
any thing of an unpromising complexion. I urged again 
much of what had been said at the last conference, and sug- 
gested such further considerations as had since occurred to 
me in support of my demand. Mr. Canning was still much 
more reserved than I had hoped to find him after so much 
time had been taken for deliberation ; but from all that 
passed I was more than ever inclined to believe that the 
orders would be relinquished. He seemed now to be ex- 
tremely desirous of ascertaining whether I was authorized 
and disposed, with a view to a final arrangement, to present 
what I had suggested, as to the suspension of the embargo, 
in a more precise shape. I told him, after some conversation 
upon this point, that, although I would prefer that course 
which was the least formal, yet, if every thing should be first 
matured, I might be able to combine with a written demand, 
that their orders would be repealed, such an assurance as I 
had already mentioned, that the embargo would be suspend- 
ed, but that I would consider of this with reference to the 
manner and terms. He then observed that I would perhaps 
allow him a little time to reflect whether he would put me 
to the necessity of presenting such a paper, and, upon my 
assenting to this, he said that he woidd give me another ap- 
pointment towards the end of the following week. As I was 
on the point of leaving him, he asked me if I would endeavor 
to prepare, before the next interview such a note as we had 
talked of ; but he had scarcely made this request before he 



206 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

added ' but you will doubtless desire first to know what are 
our ideas aud intentions upon the whole subject.' 

" On the 29th of July I met Mr. Canning again ; and 
was soon apprised that our discussions, if continued, must 
take a new form. He began by inquiring if I had received 
any intelligence of a late afl'air upon the Lakes which had 
caused great alarm and anxiety among the British traders, 
and of which an account had just been put into his hands. 
He then read very rapidly, from a letter apparently written 
in Canada, a complaint of an attack upon some British boats 
in violation of the 3d article of the Treaty of 1794, and ob- 
served that this was the more to be regretted, as it followed 
some recent misunderstanding in the Bay of Passamaquoddy. 
I told him that I had no intelligence, official or private, of 
these transactions, which he would perceive took place upon 
our borders at a great distance from the seat of government, 
and that of course, I could only express my conviction that 
the government of the United States would disavow whatever 
was improper in the conduct of its agents, and would in other 
respects act as good faith aud honor required. This affair 
being disposed of, Mr. Canning said that he had thought long 
and anxiously upon what I had suggested to him at our late 
conferences — that the subject at first struck him as much 
more simple and free from difficulty than upon careful ex- 
amination it was found to be — that in the actual state of the 
world it behooved both him and me to move in this affair with 
every possible degree of circumspection (an intimation which 
he did not explain) — that without some exjDlicit proposal on 
my part in writing upon which the British government could 
deliberate and act, nothing could be done ; and, finally, that 
he must leave me to consult my own discretion whether I 
would make such a proposal. I answered that, with such a 
previous understanding between us as I had counted upon, I 
should feel no objection to take occasion to say in an official 
note requiring the revocation of their orders in council, that, 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 207 

the orders being rescinded as to us, it was the intention of 
the President to suspend the embargo as to Great Britain ; 
but that I expected to be told, before my note was presented, 
what would be the reply to it, and what its consequences in 
every direction ; and that I could not conjecture, if it was 
really meant to acquiesce in my demand (the exact nature 
of it being in point of fact understood by this government 
just as well as if it had been made in writing), or if more 
time than had already been afforded was required for deli- 
beration, why it was necessary that I should, in the last case 
take the step in question at all, or, in the first case, without 
being frankly apprised of the effect it would produce. Mr. 
Canning replied that my wish in this particular could not be 
acceded to ; that, if I presented a note, they must be left at 
perfect liberty to decide upon what it proposed ; that he 
could not give me an intimation of the probable consequences 
of it ; and in a word, that he would neither invite nor dis- 
courage such a proceeding. He observed, too, that there 
were some points belonging to the subject which it was neces- 
sary to discuss in writing ; that my suggestion implied that 
the embargo was produced by the British orders in council — 
that this could not be admitted — and that there were other 
questions necessarihj incident to these two measures with the 
examination of wliicli it was proper to begin upon an occasion 
like the present. I remarked in answer that, with an actual 
result in view, and with a wish to arrive at that result with- 
out delay, nothing could be worse imagined than to entangle 
ourselves in a written correspondence, undefined as to its 
scope and duration, upon topics on which we were not likely 
to agree ; that if I were compelled to frame my note with a 
knowledge that it was only to provoke argument, instead of 
leading at this momentous crisis to a salutary change in the 
state of the world, he must be conscious that I too must 
argue, and that I could not justify it to my government to 
abstain from a complete assertion of all its pretensions and a 



208 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 

full exposure of the true character of those acts of which it 
complained as illegal and unjust. And where would this 
end ? To what wholesome consequence could it lead ? 

" I ought to mention that I give you in this letter the 
substance only of the conversations which it states, and that 
there was nothing in any degree unfriendly in the language 
or manner of Mr. Canning at either of our conferences. I 
need not say that I thought it my duty to adopt the same 
tone and manner." 



MR. PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON, 

"London, Sept. 6th, 1808. 

" Sir : — I have an opportunity of writing by Mr. Bethune, 
who leaves town to-morrow for Falmouth, to embark for the 
United States in the British packet ; and I cannot omit to 
take advantage of it, although I have still nothing conclusive 
to communicate. 

" My public letter of the 4th of August will have ap- 
prised you of the footing on which my different interviews 
with Mr. Canning left the subject of the British orders in 
council ; and my private letter of the 2d of that month will 
have made you acquainted with my intention to present, 
in an official note, what I had ineflfectually suggested in 
conference. 

" To such a course there could not, even in the first in- 
stance, have been any other objection than that it was cal- 
culated to lead to discussion rather than to adjustment ; but, 
whatever might be its tendency, it is certain that I could 
have no inducement to resort to it until it was indicated by 
Mr. Canning as indispensable, nor any motive to decline it 
afterwards. 

" At our last interview, and not before, it was unexpect- 
edly found that it was in that mode only that I could obtain 



LIFE OF •WILLIAM PINKNEY. 209 

a knowledge of the light in which this government thought 
fit to view the overture I had been directed to make to it ; 
and I determined, in consequence, to lay befbre it in writing 
the intentions of the President, with the same frankness 
which hud characterized my verbal communications. 

^' I have now the honor to transmit a copy of the note, 
which, in conformity with that determination, I delivered in 
person to Mr. Canning, on the 26th of last month, a few days 
after its date. To this note no answer has yet been returned; 
but it is to be presumed that it cannot be much longer with- 
held. 

" You will perceive that some time had elapsed, after I 
had sent off my dispatches by the St. Michael (the 8th of 
August), before my note was presented. The truth is, that 
I had employed a part of that time in framing a note of 
great length, which, when it was nearly completed, I thought 
it prudent to abandon, in favor of one that held out fewer 
invitations to unprofitable discussions, which, although I 
would not shun them if pressed upon me, I did not suppose 
it proper that I should seek. 

" I believed, too, that a little delay on my part would be 
far from being disadvantageous. There would still be sufficient 
tune for obtaining a final answer to my proposal, in season for 
the meeting of Congress ; and, as the temper of the govern- 
ment, so fiir as it had been tried, had not appeared to be fa- 
vorable to my purjjose, I beHeved that I should act in the 
spirit of my instructions, and consult the honor of my gov- 
ernment, by avoiding, under such circumstances, the appear- 
ance of urgency and precipitation. 

" Upon the terms, or general plan of my note it is not, 
I hope, necessary to remark. You will discover that it was 
prepared under a persuasion that, whatever might be its ef- 
fect, it was infinitely better to make it as conciliatory as, 
without a sacrifice of principle or national dignity, was pos- 
sible. 

14 



210 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

" The topics -to be embraced by it, were such as did not 
demand, but rather forbade, minute exposition. While it 
was difficult to urge in their full force without seeming to 
aim at exciting a disposition unfriendly to the object of my 
instructions, all the considerations which justified the United 
States in remonstrating against the British orders, it was yet 
more difficult, without a degree of harshness scarcely suited 
to the occasion, and without also the hazard of indiscretion, 
to display in detail the signal injustice and impolicy of per- 
severing in them, after what I had proposed. This could be 
done, and had been done, in conversation ; but it did not, 
upon trial, appear to be equally practicable in the more for- 
mal and measured proceeding which I was now called upon 
to adopt. 

" I considered, besides, that an overture so advantageous 
to Great Britain, which the United States were not bound to 
make to any obligations of equity, although it was wise to 
make it, did not require, with any view to the character of 
my country, or even to the success of the overture itself, to 
be again recommended by an anxious repetition of arguments 
already fully understood. 

" As soon as my note was prepared, I called at the 'For- 
eign office to arrange an interview with Mr. Canning, for the 
purpose of enabling me to accompany the delivery of it with 
a communication which I deemed important, as well as of 
affording him an opportunity of making and receiving such 
explanations as he might desire. The interview took place 
on the 26th of August. 

" It had occurred to me that it would be proper ( and 
could not be injurious) to read to Mr. Canning, from your 
letter to me of the 18 th of July, a brief summary of the in- 
structions under which I was acting. This had not been re- 
quested ; but it could not be unacceptable ; and it was, be- 
sides, well calculated to do justice to the liberal sentiments 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 211 

by which my instructions had been dictated, as well as to give 
weight to my efforts in the execution of them. 

" I was led by the reading of these passages (without 
having originally intended it), into a more extensive 
explanation than I had before attempted, of the influ- 
ence which the proposal of my government would have, in 
truth as well as in the judgment of the world, upon the sup- 
posed justice of their new system as it affected the United 
States. To that explanation, with the particulars of which 
I will not, and indeed for want of time cannot, at present, 
trouble you, I added a concise recapitulation of some of the 
practical considerations which had been so often pressed be- 
fore ; and there I left the subject. 

" Mr. Canning paid great attention to what I said. He 
spoke, however, of the attack on the Chesapeake and of the 
President's proclamation, and asked what was to be done 
with them .^ I stated that these two subjects were wholly 
distinct from the present, but that it was not to be doubted 
that if the atonement which the United States were authorized 
to expect, for that admitted outrage upon their sovereignty, 
were oflered in a suitable manner (which I ventured to sug- 
gest would be a special mission), it would not be difficult to 
bring the two governments to a proper understanding on these 
points — that, as it was fit that the British overture of satis- 
faction should be renewed in America, and not through me, 
I could not hope to be the immediate agent in receiving it ; 
but that I should be happy to contribute informally every as- 
sistance in my power to facilitate an adjustment, so much to 
be desired, upon such terms as it became them to offer and us 
to accept. Mr. Canning observed, * that there was a diffi- 
culty in setting about the adjustment,' and he repeated what 
he said in our conference of the 29th of June (as mentioned 
in my private letter on that date), that there would be no 
objection to restoring the men taken from the Chesapeake ; 
but he did not say what other reparation they were willing 



212 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINENEY. 

to propose. I considered myself at liberty to encourge a dis- 
position, which I thought I perceived in him, to move in that 
interesting affair, in such a manner as to promise a satisfac- 
tory conclusion of it, and I acted accordingly ; but nothing 
passed which could justify me in undertaking to anticipate 
the result. 

" At the close of the interview I told Mr. Canning that 
although I would not be understood to urge an answer to my 
note sooner than was consistent with his convenience, I could 
not help asking that it might be as prompt as possible. He 
assured me that there should be no unnecessary delay ; and I 
took my leave. 

" As I have no sufficient grounds, upon v/hich to form an 
opinion as to the final course of the British government on 
this occasion, I will not fatigue you with mere conjectures. 
I have seen Mr. Canning but once (at dinner at his own 
house), since the interview of the 26th of August ; and such 
an occasion was not suited to official approaches on my part. 
A few days, however, will decide what is now perhaps doubt- 
ful. In the mean time the Hope will probably have arrived, 
on her return from France ; and I will take care that by her, 
and by other opportunities, you shall receive the speediest 
information. 

" I beg leave to refer to the newspapers herewith sent for 
an account of the important events which have lately occur- 
red in Europe." 



MR, PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON. 
("Private.) London, Sept. ^th, 1808. 

" Dear Sir : — As Mr. Bethune leaves town in a few hours, 
I have only time to write a short private letter in addition 
to my public one of yesterday. 

" Mr. Atwater delivered your private letter of the 21st 
of July, and a duplicate of that of the 15th, and I received 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 213 

by Mr. Nicolson, on the 24th of last month, your private 
letters of the 3d and 15th of July. 

" I cannot subdue my opinion that the overture on the 
subject of tlie orders in council will be either rejected or 
evaded. What infatuation, if it be so ! 

" That the embargo pinches here is certain. There is 
undoubtedly room for alarm on the score of provisions ; and 
it is confessed that they feel severely the want of our trade. 
The effect, however, is less than it ought to have been, on 
account of the numerous evasions of the embargo, and the 
belief (encouraged in America) that we had not virtue to 
persist in it. Should it be continued it must be rigorously 
executed, and our vessels in Europe recalled. 

" I send you Marriott's book, entitled " Hints to both Par- 
ties." Towards the end you will find a pretty open avowal 
that even if France should retract her decrees, Great Britain 
ought to hold on upon the substance of her orders, making 
them only more pcdatabJe to us in some of their subordinate 
provisions. This gentleman is a West India merchant, and 
a member of Parliament ; and was consulted by ministers 
when the orders of November were in contemplation. 

" It is still believed here that the late events in Spain 
and Portugal, connected with the British explanations (al- 
ready forwarded in my private letter of the 17th of August, 
and now again transmitted) relative to a direct trade be- 
tween the United States and those countries, will have an 
irresistible efiect on our embargo. They are so misled in 
this country as to suppose that the embargo has already 
produced very formidable discontent in America, and I am 
mistaken if the government has not been inclined to cal- 
culate upon that discontent in various ways, and at 
least to give it a trial. But, at any rate, the Spanish and 
Portuguese trade wiU, it is imagined, be too great a temp- 
tation to be withstood. I know not what we may tliink of 
this temptation in America, — but it wiU be well to reflect 



214 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

thatj if we trade under the British orders and go to war 
with France (as this speculation supposes) while the British 
orders continue, we not only retreat from the honorable 
ground we have taken, and admit the right of Great Britain 
to act at all times upon her new system, to the utter ex- 
tinction of our commerce, but deliver ourselves up to her 
mercy in all respects. What would be her course in that 
respect I know not ; but is there any reason to believe it 
woidd be generous or even just ? We should, I incline to 
think, be in danger of falling into a dependence upon this 
country fatal to our character, to our institutions, to our 
navigation, to our strength — and what could we hope to 
gain ? I profess I am not able to imagine. 

" Since the change in Spain and Portugal this nation is 
not exactly what it was ; and it may be presumed that the 
government partakes of the universal exaltation. Their 
dreams of future prosperity are bright and romantic. A 
Chateau en Espagne has become quite common. I have 
heard it suggested (as a course of reasoning not unusual 
here among merchants and others) that South America, 
whether dependent or independent, must be thrown com- 
mercially into the arms of Great Britain, — that, encouraged 
to exertion and roused to acti\ity by a new order of things, she 
will hereafter rival us in all the great agricultural produc- 
tions of our country — that, under a system friendly to the 
development of their resources, our southern neighbors 
will even surpass us as cultivators — that Great Britain wUl 
thus become wholly independent of the United States for ar- 
ticles which she has heretofore been obliged to take from 
them, and in a great degree too, for the consumption of her 
manufactures — that in other views our importance will be 
greatly diminished, if not absolutely annihilated, by this 
new competition — that this result, almost inevitable in any 
view, is more especially to be counted upon if Great Britain, 
compelled by the policy of our government, or following the 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 215 

impulse of the jealousy which is imputed to her, should 
foster (by her capital and her trade), to the full extent of her 
capacity, the prosperity of the south, in contradistinction to 
that of the north— that the change in Spain is otherwise 
likely to enable Great Britain to hold towards the United 
States a higher tone than formerly — that the Spanish depu- 
ties here (I doubt this fact), and those who are in the new 
Spanish interest (this I believe true), begin to talk already 
of our Louisiana purchase as unfit to be submitted to — 
that regenerated Spain will certainly question the validity of 
the cession that preceded our purchase, and reclaim the territo- 
ry alienated by it — that this and other causes of dissatisfaction 
(aided by the sentiment of gratitude and the considerations 
of interest which bind the Spaniards to Great Britain) may 
be easily fomented into a quarrel with the United States, of 
which the consequences (Great Britain being a party also) 
may be most destructive. 

" These rhapsodies (which may, however, be worthy of 
some attention) show how enthusiasm and prejudice can cal- 
culate ! Spain, assailed by the whole power of France, has 
already leisure for an American quarrel, and can even spare 
troops to recover a superfluous territory on the Mississippi ! 
The inveterate habits and pursuits of a whole people, in 
another hemisphere, are, against the repulsion of still exist- 
ing causes, to pass to opposite extremes in consequence of a 
revolution in Europe yet in its earliest infancy, and of which 
the transatlantic effect (even if in Europe the revolution were 
established) would be a problem ! Great Britain, with a 
vast increase of debt, is to find her account in casting from 
her our market for her manufactures, in rejecting our com- 
modities essential to her colonics and convenient to herself, 
for the purpose of patronizing a country, on the permanency 
of whose connection she cannot rely, many of whose produc- 
tions come in competition with those of her own colonies, and 
in which the passage from the actual state of things to that 



216 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

wHcli is contemplated, must be reluctant and slow, and lia- 
ble to endless interruptions and relapses ! It is forgotten, 
too, that this interesting section of the globe during all this 
tedious and doubtful process, may and must contribute to 
nourish our growth, while it can scarcely rival us in any 
thing. It is forgotten that, if it continues to lean upon the 
parent state, it is not likely, under the pressure of colonial 
restrictions, to flourish to our prejudice or even to flourish at 
all, but may serve to strengthen and enrich us ; and that, if 
it becomes independent, after our example, it will be far 
more natural that we should benefit and reflect lustre and 
power upon each other, than that Great Britain should find 
in the south the means of humbling the other branches of the 
great family of the west. 

" From the newspapers it would seem that France and 
Austria are on the eve of war. Yet I have been told that it 
is not so. It is, I believe, certain that France has changed her 
tone (from haughtiness and menace to conciliation) towards 
Austria, since the discomfitures in Spain. This is not con- 
clusive proof, however, 

" The report that Lucien Bonaparte has requested of a 
British minister a passport to go to America is, I understand 
from a very respectable quarter, true, 

" The result of our elections will now soon be known, I 
trust they will be favorable to the measures of our govern- 
ment. I need not say how sincerely and anxiously I wish 
that, with reference to yourself personally, they may give 
you all the honor which the sufii-ages of our people can 
bestow." 

MR. PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON. 

("Private.) London, Sept. 10th, 1808. 

" Deae Sir : — I intended to have inclosed in my private 
letter of the 7th by Mr. Bethune, who left town on the even- 
ing of that day for Falmouth, to embark in the British 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 217 

packet, a triplicate of my public letter of the 4tli of August, 
but in my hurry I omitted it. I transmit it now by Mr. 
Young, our consul at Madrid, who is about to sail from 
Gravescnd for New- York, and I beg to renew my request 
that the slight variations from the original and dujilicate, 
which you will find in the line marked in the margin with a 
pencil, may be adopted. The only one of these corrections, 
however, about which I am in the least anxious, is in the 
fourth paragraph from the end, which in my rough draft 
reads thus, " at the close of the intervieio, I observed, that, 
as the footing upon which this intervieio has, &c." This 
awkward iteration of the word intervieio (if not actually 
avoided in the original and duplicate, as perhaps it is) I 
really wish corrected. 

" Mr. Canning's reply to my note not making its appear- 
ance, I went this morning to Downing-street to inquire about 
it ; but both Mr. Canning and Mr. Hammond were in the 
country. I shall not omit to press for the answer (without, 
however, giving unnecessary offence) until I obtain it, or 
have the delay explained. It is possible that, when received, 
it may be found to adopt our proposal, and that they are 
merely taking time to connect with their compliance a long 
vindication of their orders. This is one way of accounting 
for the delay. 

"It is also possible that they are actually undecided, 
and that they wish to procrastinate and keep back their an- 
swer until they can understand by the British packet (ex- 
pected veiy soon) the workings of the embargo, and of the 
Spanish views in America ; until they can take measure of 
our elections ; until they can ascertain what is to be the 
course of France towards us ; until the state of Europe, so 
flattering to their hopes, shaU improve yet more, or at any 
rate be past the danger of a relapse, &c., &c. All this is 
possible ; but I continue to think that they will reject what 
I have proposed. Their present elevation is exactly calcu- 



218 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

lated (aided by false estimates of America) to mislead them 
to such a conclusion. They are hardly in a temper of mind 
to appreciate the motives of the President's conduct. The 
chances ^re that they will ascribe the assurances I have been 
authorized to give them, as to the embargo law, to a mere 
anxiety to get rid of that law ; and that they will only see 
in those assurances a pledge that we are heartily tired of our 
actual position, and are ready to abandon it at any rate 
They will be apt, in a word, to presume (believing, as I am 
sure they do, that we will -not venture upon extremities with 
them) that, by holding off, they will compel us to retract 
our late measures (the most wise and honorable ever adopted 
by a government), and to fall at their feet. You must not 
be surprised if they should be found to expect even more 
than this from the pressure of the embargo. I allude to the 
influence which many hope it will have upon our elections, 
in bringing about a change of men as well as of measures. 
In this I trust they will be signally disappointed. 

" If (party spirit out of the question) the conduct of our 
government towards the two powers that keep the world in 
an uproar with their quarrel, has been realhj disapproved in 
the United States, the overture just made to both cannot 
fail to subdue it. I anticipate from it a perfect union of 
sentiment in favor of any attitude which it may be necessary 
to take. It puts us so unequivocally in the right, that, 
although we were not, I think, bound to make it, it is im- 
possible not to rejoice that it has been made. In any event 
it must be salutary and must do us honor. The overture, 
however, would seem to be more advantageous to Great 
Britain than France. For if you should take off the embargo 
as to France and continue it as to Great Britain, your pro- 
ceeding would have little substance in it, considered as a 
benefit to France, unless and until you luent to war against 
Great Britain. But the converse of this would have a vast 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 219 

effect in favor of Great Britain, whether you went to war 
with France or not. 

" It does not follow, and certainly is not true, that the 
overture is for that reason unjust to France ; although I 
think it the clearest case in the world that Great Britain is 
(at least) in pari delicto with France on the subject of that 
code of violence which drives neutrals from the seas and 
justice from the world. 

" It is said here, by those who affect to know, that a con- 
ciliatory conduct by France toward the United States wiU 
not be acceptable to this government ; and certainly Mar- 
riott's book affords some reason for suspicion that a repeal 
of the French decrees would not be followed by that of the 
British orders. Such infatuation is scarcely credible, yet it 
would not be much worse than their present backwardness 
to avail themselves of what has lately been said to them. 

"After all, it will be safest (for a time longer) to keep 
opinion as much as possible in suspense — and I need not re- 
peat my assurances that the moment I receive the informa- 
tion I am expecting, no effort shall be spared to put you in 
possession of it." 

MR. PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON. 
(" Pritate.) London, Sept. 2\st, 1808. 

" Dear Sir : — The Hope arrived at Cowes from France 
the 13th. 

"Not having heard from Mr. Canning, although he 
returned to London the 16th, I called again yesterday at 
Downing-street, and was assured that the answer to my note 
would be sent to night or early to-morrow morning. Mr. 
Atwater will of course be able to leave to^\^l on Friday, and 
embark on Saturday with a copy of it. 

" I have been told since the arrival of the last British 
packet (but do not believe it), that there is more probability 
than I had anticipated, that the late events in Spain and 



220 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

Portugal (which ought not to be considered as decidi7ig on 
any thing) will have an effect on public opinion in America 
against the continuance of the embargo, and favorable to all 
the purposes of Great Britain. If this were true, I should 
think it was deeply to be lamented. I may misunderstand 
the subject ; but I cannot persuade myself that any thing 
that has happened on this side of the Atlantic, ought to in- 
duce us in any degree to retreat from our present system. 

" If we should resolve to trade with Spain and Portugal 
(Great Britain and France persisting in their orders and de- 
crees) in any way to which Great Britain would not object, 
we must suspend the embargo as to those countries only or 
as to those countries and Great Britain, or we must repeal 
it altogether. 

" The temptation to the first of these courses, is, even 
in a commercial sense, inconsiderable ; the objection to it 
endless. The object to be gained (if no more was gained 
than ought to be gained) would be trifling. There could 
indeed be no gain. An inadequate market redundantly sup- 
plied would be more injurious than no market at all ; it would 
be a lure to destruction, and nothing more. A suspension of 
the embargo, so limited in its nature as this would be (sup- 
posing it to be in fact what it would be in form), would have 
a most unequal and invidious operation in the different quar- 
ters of the Union, of which the various commodities would 
not in the ports of Portugal and Spain be in equal demand. 

" A war with France would be inevitable ; and such a 
war (so produced), from which we could not hope to derive 
either honor or advantage, would j)lace us at the mercy of 
Great Britain, and, on that account, would in the end do 
more to cripple and humble us than any disaster that could 
otherwise befall us. 

" The actual state of Spain and Portugal is moreover not 
to be relied upon. My first opinion on that subject remains; 
but even the most sanguine wiU admit that there is great 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 221 

room for doubt. The Emperor of France is evidently col- 
lecting a mighty force for the reduction of Spain ; and Por- 
tugal must share its fate. And even if that force should be 
destined (as some suppose) first to contend with Austria, the 
speedy subjugation of Spain is not the less certain. If 
France should succeed, Spain and Portugal would again Ml 
under the British orders of November, as well as under the 
operation of the French decrees. Our cargoes would scarcely 
have found their way to the ocean in search of the boasted 
market, before they would be once more in a state of prohi- 
bition, and we should, in the mean time, have incurred the 
scandal of suffering an improvident thirst of gain to seduce 
us from our principles into a dilemma presenting no alterna- 
tive but loss in all the senses of the word. 

" But it is not event certain what Great Britain would 
herself finally say to such a partial suspension of the embargo. 
She would doubtless si first approve of it. But her ultimate 
course (especially if war between France and the United 
States were not the immediate consequence, or if the mea- 
sure were eventually less beneficial to herself than might be 
supposed at the outset), ought not to be trusted. That she 
should approve at first, is hardly to be questioned, and the 
considerations upon which she would do so, are precisely 
those which should dissuade us from it. Some of these are — 
the aid it would afford to her alhes, as well as to her own 
troops co-operating with them, and its consequent tendency 
to destroy every thing like system in our conduct — its ten- 
dency to embroil us with France, its tendency to induce us, 
by overstocking a hmited market, to make our commodities 
of no value — to dissipate our capital — to ruin our merchants 
without benefiting our agriculture — to destroy our infant 
manufactures without benefiting our commerce — its tendency 
to habituate us to a trammelled trade, and to fit us for ac- 
quiescence in maritime despotism. But there are other 
reasons — our trade with Spain and Portugal, while it lasted, 



222 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

would be a circuitous one with Gi'eat Britain and her colo- 
nies, for their benefit. Our productions would be carried in 
the first instance to Spain and Portugal, would be bought 
there for British account, and would find their way to the 
.West Indies or centre here, as British convenience might re- 
quire, and thus in effect the embargo be removed as to Great 
Britain, while it continued as to France, and we professed to 
continue it as to both. And if any profits should arise from 
this sordid traffic, they would become a fund, to enable us to 
import into the United States directly or indirectly the 
manufactures of Great Britain, and thus relieve her in an- 
other way, while her orders would prevent us from receiving 
the commodities of her enemy. It would be far better openly 
to take off the embargo as to Great Britain, than while 
affecting to continue it as to that power, to do what must 
rescue her completely (and that too without advantage to 
ourselves) from the pressure of it, at the same time that it 
would promote her views against France in Portugal and 
Spain. 

" As to the withdrawing the embargo as to Great Britain, 
as well as Spain and Portugal, while the British orders are 
unrepealed, the objections to that course are just as strong now 
as they were four months ago. The change in Spain and 
Portugal (if it were even likely to last) cannot touch the 
principle of the embargo, as regards Great Britain, who re- 
asserts her orders of November, in the very explanations of 
the 4th of July, under which we must trade with those 
countries, if we trade with them at all. If we include Great 
Britain in the suspension, and exclude France, we do now 
what we have declined to do before, for the sake of a delu- 
sive commerce, which may perish before it can be enjoyed, 
and cannot in any event be enjoyed with credit, with advan- 
tage, or even with safety. We take part at once with Great 
Britain against France, at a time the least suited that could 
be imagined to such a determination ; at a time when it 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 223 

might be said we were emboldened by French reverses, to do 
what before wc could not resolve upon, or even tempted by 
a prospect of scanty profit, exaggerated by our cupidity and 
impatience to forget what was due to consistency, to charac- 
ter, and permanent prosperity. We sanction too the mari- 
time pretensions which insult and injure us ; we throw our- 
selves, bound hand and foot, upon the generosity of a gov- 
ernment that has hitherto refused us justice ; and all this 
when the aflfair of the Chesapeake, and a host of other 
wrongs, are unredressed, and when Great Britain has just 
rejected an overture which she must have accepted with 
eagerness if her views were not such as it became us to sus- 
pect and guard against. 

" To repeal the embargo altogether would be preferable 
to either of the other courses, but would notwithstanding be 
BO fatal to us in all respects, that we should long feel the 
wound it would inflict, unless indeed some other expedient, 
ns strong at least and as efficacious in all it bearings, can (as 
I fear it cannot) be substituted in its place. 

" War would seem to be the unavoidable result of such 
a step. If our commerce should not flourish in consequence 
of tliis measure, nothing would be gained by it but dishonor; 
and how it could be carried on to any valuable purpose, it 
would be difficult to show. If our commerce should flourish 
in spite of French and British edicts, and the miserable 
state of the world ; in spite of war with France, if that 
should happen, it would, I doubt not, be assailed in some 
other form. The spirit of monopoly has seized the people 
and government of this country. We shall not under any 
circumstances be tolerated as rivals in navigation and trade 
— it is in vain to hope that Great Britain will voluntarily 
foster the naval means of the United States. All her prej- 
udices — all her calculations are against it. Even as allies 
we should be subjects of jealousy. It would be endless to 
enumerate in detail the evils which would chng to us in this 



224 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 

new career of vassalage and meanness, and tedious to pursue 
our backward course to the extinction of that very trade to 
which we had sacrificed every thing else. 

" On the other hand, if we persevere we must gain our 
purpose at last. By complying with the little policy of the 
moment, we shall be lost. By a great and systematic adhe- 
rence to principle we shall find the end to our difficulties. 
The embargo and the loss of our trade are deeply felt here, 
and will be felt with more severity every day. The wheat 
harvest is like to be alarmingly short, and the state of the 
continent will augment the evil. The discontents among 
their manufactures are only quieted for the moment by tem- 
porary causes. Cotton is rising, and soon will be scarce. 
Unfavorable events on the continent will subdue the temper 
unfriendly to wisdom and justice which now prevails here. 
But above all, the world will, I trust, be convinced that our 
firmness is not to be shaken — our measures have not been 
without effect. They have not been decisive, because we 
have not been thought capable of persevering in self-denial, 
if that can be called self-denial which is no more than pru- 
dent abstinence from destruction and dishonor. 

" I ought to mention that I have been told by a most 
respectable American merchant here, that large quantities 
of such woollen cloths as are prohibited by our non-importa- 
tion act, have been and continue to be sent to Canada, with 
the view of being smuggled into the United States. 

" I beg you to excuse the frequency and length of my 
private letters. 

" I need not tell you that I am induced to trouble you 
with my hasty reflections, because I think you stand in need 
of them. I give them merely because I believe that you 
are entitled to know the impressions which a pubHc servant 
on this side of the water receives from a view of our situa- 
tion." 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 225 

MR. PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON. 

"London, Sepfe^nber 2itfi^ 1808. 

" Sir : — I am now enabled to transmit to you a copy of 
Mr. Canning's answer, received only last night, to my note 
of the 23d of August. 

" This answer was accompanied by a letter, of which also 
a copy is inclosed, recapitulating what Mr. Canning sup- 
poses to be ' the substance of what has passed between us 
at our several interviews, previous to the presentation of my 
official letter.' 

" To the accompan}nng paper I think it indispensable 
that I should reply without delay, supporting, with polite- 
ness, but with firmness, the statements which I have already 
had the honor to make to you of the conversations in question, 
and correcting some errors uj)on points which Mr. Canning 
has thought fit to introduce into his letter, but which I had 
not supposed it necessary to mention in detail in my dis- 
patches. 

" I shall not detain Mr. Atwater with a view to this re- 
ply ; but will take care to forward a copy of it by an early 
conveyance. My official note and the answer to it being 
perfectly intelligible, Mr. Canning's misapprehensions (for 
such they are) of previous verbal communications, can 
scarcely be very important in a public view ; but it is, ne- 
vertheless, of some consequence that whatever may be the 
objeet of his statement, I should not make myself a party to 
its inaccuracies, by even a tacit admission of them. 

"I do not perceive that a formal reply to the more 
official paper, can now be of any advantage ; but I shall 
probably take occasion to combine with my reply to the one 
paper some observations upon the other. 

" I regret extremely, that the views which I have been 
instructed to lay before this government have not been met 
by it as I had at first been led to expect. The overture can- 
15 



226 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

not fail, however, to place in a strong liglit the just and libe- 
ral sentiments by which our government is animated, and in 
other respects to be useful and honorable to our country." 



ME. PINKNEY TO MB. . MADISON. 

"London, November 25th, 1808. 

" Sir : — I have the honor to send inclosed a copy of a let- 
ter, received last night, from Mr. Canning, in answer to my 
letter to him of the 10th of last month. 

" The tone of this letter renders it impossible to reply to 
it with a view to a discussion of what it contains, although 
it is not without further inadvertencies as to factSj and ma- 
ny of the observations are open to exception. I intend, how- 
ever, to combine with an acknowledgment of the receipt of it 
two short explanations. The first will relate to the new and 
extraordinary conjecture, which it intimates, that my au- 
thority was contingent ; and the second will remind Mr. 
Canning that my letter of the 10th of October does not, as 
he imagines, leave unexplained the remark that, " the pro- 
msional nature of my offer, to make my proposal in writing, 
arose out of circumstances; " but, on the contrary, that " the 
explanation immediately follows the remark." 



MR, PINKNEY TO ME. MADISON. 

"London, December 24:th, 1808. 

Sir : — I have had the honor to receive, by the British 
packet, your letters of the 9th and 10th of last month. 

The assurance contained in the first of these letters, of 
the President's approbation of the manner in which my late 
instructions were executed, afibrds me the most lively satis- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 227 

faction ; and I beg you to accept my sincere thanks for the 
kind and flattering terms in which you have been so good as 
to communicate it." 



MR. PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON. 
("Private.) London, January IZd, 1809. 

" Dear Sir : — I dined at Mr. Canning's with the Corps 
Dijjlomatiqtie, on the 18th, the day appointed for the cele- 
bration of the Queen's birth-day. Before dinner he came 
up to me, and, entering into conversation, adverted to a re- 
port which he said had reached him, that the American 
ministers (here and in France) were about to be recalled. 
I replied that I was not aware that such a step had already 
been resolved upon. He then took me aside, and observed 
that, according to his view of the late proceedings of Con- 
gress, the resolutions of the House of Representatives in 
committee of the Avhole, ap2)eared to be calculated, if passed 
into a law, to remove the impediments to an arrangement 
with the United States upon the two subjects of the orders 
in council and the Chesapeake — that the President's procla- 
mation had in fact formed the great obstacle to the adoption 
of what we had lately proposed, and that every body knew 
that it had formed the sole obstacle to adjustment in the 
other affair — that the renewal of commercial intercourse 
with America, while that proclamation remained in force, 
would have been attended with this embarrassment , that 
British merchant vessels, going into our ports, would have 
found there the commissioned cruisers of the enemy in a ca- 
pacity to assail them as soon as they shoidd put to sea ; 
while British armed vessels, having no asylum in those 
ports, would not have been equally in a situation to afford 
them protection — that if this was not insisted upon at large 
in his reply to my official letter of the 23d of August, it was 



228 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET, 

because it was difficult to do so without giving to that paper 
somewhat of an unfriendly appearance — that as the above 
mentioned embarrassment, produced by the proclamation of 
the President, and the right which Great Britain supposed 
she had to complain of the continuance of that proclama- 
tion, j)roceeded, not from the exclusion of British ships of 
war from American ports, but from the discrimination in 
that respect between Great Britain and her adversaries ; 
and as the resolutions of the House of Eepresentatives took 
away that discrimination, although not perhaps in the man- 
ner which Great Britain could have wished, they were will- 
ing to consider the law to which the resolutions were pre- 
paratory, as putting an end to the difficulties which pre- 
vented satisfactory adjustments with us. He then said that 
they were, of course, desirous of being satisfied by us, that 
the view which they thus took of the resolutions in question 
was correct ; and he intimated a wish that we should say 
that the intention of the American government was in con- 
formity with that view. He added, that it was another 
favorable circumstance that the non-importation system was 
about to be applied to all the belligerents. 

" As this occurred rather unexpectedly (although my re- 
ception at court, and other circumstances of much more con- 
sequence, had seemed to give notice of some change), and as 
I did not think it advisable to say much, even informally, 
upon topics of such delicacy at so short a warning, I pro- 
posed to Mr. Canning that I should call on him in the course 
of a day or two, for the purpose of a more free conversation 
upon what he had mentioned, than was then practicable. To 
this he readily assented ; and it was settled that I should 
see him on the Sunday following (yesterday), at 12 o'clock, 
at his own house. I thought it prudent, however, to suggest 
at once, that the resolutions of the House of Eepresenta- 
tives struck me as they did Mr. Canning ; and (supposing 
myself to be warranted by your private letter of the 25th 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 229 

of November, in going so far), I added, that although it was 
evident that if Great Britain and Franco adhered to their 
present systems, the resohitions had a necessary tendency to 
hasten a disagreeable crisis, I was sure that my government, 
retaining the spirit of moderation which had always charac- 
terized it, would be most willing that Great Britain should 
consider them as calculated to furnish an opportunity for ad- 
vances to renewed intercourse and honorable explanations. 

" The interview yesterday was of some length. An ar- 
rangement with me was out of the question. An assurance 
from me as to the intention of the American government 
in passing (if indeed it had passed), an Exclusion and Non- 
intercourse law, applicable to all the powers at war, was 
equally out of the question. I had no authority to take any 
official step in the business ; and I should not have taken any 
without further instructions from you, founded upoi\thenew 
state of things, even if my former authority had not^eenat 
an end. My object, therefore, was merely to encourage suit- 
able approaches on the part of the government by such un- 
official representations as I might be justified in making. 

" I will not persecute you with a detail of my suggestions 
to Mr. Canning, intended to place the conduct of our govern- 
ment in its true light, and to second the effect which its firm- 
ness and wisdom had manifestly produced. It will be suffi- 
cient to state that, while I declined (indeed it was not 
pressed), giving or allowing Mr. Canning to expect any such 
assurances as I had understood him to allude to in our last 
conversation, I said every thing which I thought consistent 
with discretion, to confirm him in his disposition to seek the 
re-establishment of good understanding with us, and espe- 
cially to see in the expected act of Congress, if it should pass, 
an opening to which the most scrupulous could not object, as 
well as the strongest motives of prudence for such advances, 
before it should be too late, on the side of this countiy, as 
could scarcely fail to produce the best results. 



230 LIFE QF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

" It was of some importance to turn their attention here 
without loss of time, to the manner of any proceeding which 
might be in contemplation. It seemed that the resolutions 
of the House of Kepresentatives, if enacted into a law, might 
render it proper, if not indispensable, that the affair of the 
Chesapeake should be settled at the same time with the af- 
fair of the orders and embargo ; and this was stated by Mr. 
Canning to be his opinion and his wish. It followed that 
the whole matter ought to be settled at Washington ; and 
as this was, moreover, desirable on various other grounds, I 
suggested that it would be Avell (in case a special mission 
did not meet their approbation), that the necessary powers 
should be sent to Mr. Erskine ; but I offered my interven- 
tion for the purpose of guarding them against deficiencies in 
those powers, and of smoothing the way to a successful issue. 
Mr. Canning gave no opinion on this point. 

" Although I forbear to trouble you in detail with what 
I said to Mr. Canning, it is fit that you should know what 
was said by him on every point of importance. 

" In the course of conversation he proposed several ques- 
tions for reflection, relative to our late proposal, which, when 
that proposal was made, were not even glanced at. The 
principal were the two following : 

" 1. In case they should now wish, either through me or 
through Mr. Erskine, to meet us upon the ground of the late 
overture, in what way was the effectual operation of our em- 
bargo as to France, after it should be taken off as to Great 
Britain, to be secured ? It was evident, he said, that if we 
should do no more than refuse clearances for the ports of 
France, &c., or prohibit, under penalties, voyages to such ports, 
the effect which my letter of the 21st of August, and my 
published instructions professed to have in view, would not 
be produced ; for that vessels, although cleared for Brit- 
ish ports, might, when once out, go to France instead of com- 
ing here. That this would in fact be so (whatever the pen- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 231 

allies which the American law might denounce against of- 
fenders), could not, he imagined, be doubted ; and he pre- 
sumed, therefore, as he could see no possible objection to it 
(on our part), that the government of the United States 
would not, after it had itself declared a commerce with France 
illegal, and its citizens who should engage in it dcUnquents, 
complain if the naval force of this country should assist in 
preventing such a commerce. 

" 2. He asked whether there would be any objection to 
asking the repeal of the British orders and of the American 
embargo contemporaneous ? He seemed to consider this as 
indispensable. Nothing could be less admissible, he said, 
than that Great Britain, after rescinding her orders, should, 
for any time, however short, be left subject to the embargo 
in common with France, whose decrees were subsisting, with 
a view to an experiment upon France, or with any other view. 
The United States could not upon their own principles apply 
the embargo to this country one moment after the orders 
were removed, or decline after that event to apply it exclusive- 
ly to France and the powers connected with her. Great 
Britain would dishonor herself by any arrangement which 
should have such an effect, &c. 

" You will recollect that my instructions (particularly 
your letter of the 30th of April), had rather appeared to pro- 
ceed upon the idea that the British orders were to be repealed 
before the embago was removed as to England ; and it is 
probable that a perusal of these instructions led to Mr. Can- 
ning's inquiry. 

" Upon the whole, I thought I might presume that tliis 
government had at last determined to sacrifice to us their 
orders in council in the way we had before proposed (although 
Mr. Canning once, and only once, talked of amendment and 
modification, which I immediately discouraged, as well as of 
-epeal), and to offer the amende lionorahle, in the case of the 
t esapeake, provided Congress should be found to have passed 



232 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

a law in conformity with the resolutions of the House of 
Representatives. I ought to say, however, that Mr. Can- 
ning did not precisely pledge himself to that effect ; and 
that the past justifies distrust. The result of the elections 
in America — the unexpected firmness displayed by Congress 
and the nation — the disappointments in Spain and elsewhere 
— a perceptible alteration in public opinion here since the 
last intelligence from the United States — an apprehension 
of losing our market, of having us for enemies, &c., have 
apparently made a deep impression upon ministers ; but 
nothing can inspire perfect confidence in their intentions but 
an impossible forgetfulness of the past, or the actual con- 
clusion of an arrangement with us. In a few days I may 
calculate upon hearing from you. If Congress shall have 
passed the expected act, the case to which Mr. Canning looks 
will have been made, and he may be brought to a test from 
which it will be difficult to escape. Whatever may be my 
instructions I shall obey them with fidelity and zeal ; but I 
sincerely hope they will not make it my duty to prefer ad- 
justment here to adjustment in Washington. I am firmly 
pursuaded that it will be infinitely better that the business 
should be transacted immediately with our government ; and, 
if I shall be at liberty to do so, I shall continue to urge that 
course. 

" You wiU not fail to perceive that the ground upon 
which it is now pretended that our proposition of last sum- 
mer was rejected, is utterly inconsistent with Mr. Canning's 
note, in which that proposition is distinctly rejected upon 
other grounds, although in the conclusion of the note, the 
President's proclamation is introduced hy-the-hy. Besides, 
what can be more shallow than the pretext of the supposed 
embarrassment ! 

" I took occasion to mention at the close of our conversa- 
tion, the recent appointment of Admiral Berkely to the Lis- 
bon station. Mr. Canning said that, with every inclination 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 233 

to consult the feelings of the American government on that 
subject, it was hnpossible for the admiralty to resist the claim 
of that officer to be employed, f(/lfc)- such a lapse of time since 
his recall from Halifax, without bringing him to a court- 
martial. The usage of the navy was in that respect different 
from that of the army. He might, however, still be brought 
to a court-martial, and in what he had done, he had acted 
wholly without authority, &c., &c. I did not propose to 
enter into any discussion upon the subject, and contented 
myself with lamenting the appointment as unfortunate. 

" The documents laid before Congress and published have 
had a good effect here. Your letter to Mr. Erskine I have 
caused to be printed in a pamphlet, with my letter to Mr. 
Canning of the 23d of August, and his reply. The report 
of the committee of the House of Representatives is admitted 
to be a most able paper, and has been published in the Morn- 
ing Chronicle. The Times newspaper (notwithstanding its 
former violence against us), agrees that our overture should 
have been accepted. 

" The opposition in Parliament is unanimous on this sub- 
ject, although divided on others. Many of the friends of 
government speak well of our overture, and almost every 
body disapproves of Mr. Canning's note. The tone has 
changed, too, in the city. In short, I have a strong hope 
that the eminent wisdom of the late American measures 
will soon be practically proved to the confusion of their op- 
ponents. 

" I refer you to the newspapers for news (in the highest 
degree interesting) and for the debates. See particularly IVIr. 
Canning's speech in the House of Commons, on the 19th, as 
reported in the Morning Chronicle. 

" p, s, — As it was possible that the resolutions of the 
House of Representatives might not pass into a law, I en- 
deavored to accommodate my conversation of yesterday to 



234 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKN-EY, 

that possibility, at the same time that I did not refuse to let 
Mr. Canning see that I supposed the law would pass. 

"I have omitted to mention that we spoke of Mr. 
Sawyer's letter in our first conversation, and that during the 
whole of the evening, Mr. Canning seemed desirous of show- 
ing, by more than usual kindness and respect, that it had 
made no unfavorable impression. I incline to think that it 
has rather done good than harm. 

"I have marked this letter private, because I under- 
stood Mr. Canning as rather speaking confidentially than of- 
ficially, and I certainly meant so to speak myself ; but you 
will nevertheless make use of it as you think fit : of course it 
will not in any event be published. 

" A third embargo breaker has arrived at Kinsale, in Ire- 
land, on her way to Liverpool. She is called the Sally, and 
is of Virginia, with more than three hundred hogsheads of 
tobacco." 



MR. PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON. 
( "Pkivate.) London, May 3(?, 1809. 

" Dear Sir : — I have had the honor to receive your letter 
of the I7th of March, and thank you sincerely for your good 
wishes. Permit me to offer my cordial congratulations upon 
the manner in which you have been called to the Presidency. 
Such a majority at such a time is most honorable to our 
country and to you. My trust is that with the progress of 
your administration, your friends will grow in strength and 
numbers^ and that the people will see in your future labors 
new titles to praise and confidence. You have my cordial 
wishgs for your fame and happiness, and for the success of 
all your views for the public good. 

" The pubhcation of my letter of the 21st of September, 
has not had the effect which malice expected and intended ; 
and it is not improbable that it has contributed to produce a 



LITE OP WILLIAM PINKNEY. 235 

result directly the reverse of its obvious purpose. Such an 
incident, however, is injurious to the character of our coun- 
try, but it will, doubtless, inspire at home such a distrust of 
the honor of members of Congress, who could condescend to 
so low and malignant a fraud, as to prevent a repeti- 
tion of it, 

" My letter to the Secretary of State will announce to 
you the change which has taken place here on the subject of 
the orders in council. I venture to hope that this measure 
will open the way to reconcilement between this country 
and America without any disparagement of our interests or 
our honor. I have not time (as the messenger leaves town 
in the morning, and it is now late at night) to trouble you 
with a detailed statement of my notions on this subject — 
but I will presume upon your indulgence for a few words 
upon it. 

" The change does undoubtedly produce a great effect in 
a conmiercial view, and removes many of the most disgust- 
ing features of that system of violence and monopoly against 
which our efforts have been justly directed. The orders of 
November were in execution of a sordid scheme of com- 
mercial and fiscal advantage, to which America was to be 
sacrificed. They were not more atrocious than mean. The 
trade of the world was to be forced through British ports, 
and to pay British imposts. As a belligerent instrument, 
the orders were nothing. They were a trick of trade — a 
huckstering contrivance to enrich Great Britain, and drive 
other nations from the seas. The new system has a better 
air. Commerce is no longer to be forced through this coun- 
try. We may go direct to Kussia, and to all other coun- 
tries, except to France and Holland, and the kingdom of 
Italy and their colonies. The duty system is at an end. 
We may carry, as heretofore, enemy productions. The pro- 
vision about certificates of origin is repealed. That about 
prize ships is repealed also. What remains of the old mea- 



236 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

sure is of a helligerent character, and is to be strictly ex- 
ecuted as such. No licenses are to be granted even to Brit- 
ish merchants to trade to Holland or France. 

" There can be no question that this change gives us all 
the immediate benefits which could have arisen out of the 
acceptance of our overture of last year. It does not, in- 
deed, give us the same claim to demand from France the re- 
call of her edicts : but, in every other respect, it may be 
doubted whether it is not more convenient. If that over- 
ture had been received, a difficulty would have occurred as 
to the mode of making it efiectual, as mentioned in my pri- 
vate letter of the 23d of January. And if we had agreed, 
either formally or by mere understanding, to Mr, Canning's 
suggestion, mentioned in the same letter, the substance of 
the thing would have approached very nearly to what has 
since been done. But, at any rate, the manner of the trans- 
action is open to negotiation, and the intimation to that ef- 
fect which has been made to me, may be an inducement to 
resume a friendly attitude towards Great Britain, and to 
put the sincerity of that intimation to the test. 

" For the gain actually obtained, we may pay no price. 
We give no pledge of any sort, and are not bound to take 
any step whatever. The embargo is already repealed after 
the end of the approaching session of Congress. The non- 
intercourse law will expire at the same time. If neither 
should be continued at the approaching session, negotiation 
may be tried for obtaining what is yet to be desired, and, 
that failing, our future measures are in our own power, 

" I am not sure that we have not got rid of the most 
obnoxious portion of the British orders in the most acceptable 
ivay. To what is left, it is impossible that either the gov- 
ernment or the people of this country can be much attached. 
Having obtained gratuitously the present concessions, we are 
warranted in hoping that the rest, diminished in value, flat- 
tering no prejudices, addressing itself to no peculiar interests, 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 237 

and viewed with indifFerence by all, will be easily abandoned. 
In the mean time our peace is preserved, and our industry 
revived. France can have no cause of quarrel, nor wo any 
inducement to seek a quarrel with her. The United States are 
no parties to the recent British measure as a measure of pres- 
sure and coercion upon France. We may trade in consequence 
of it, and endeavor to obtain further concessions, without the 
hazard of war with either party; while what has already been 
conceded saves our honor and greatly improves our situation. 
Our overture of last summer, if accepted, must have produced 
war with France, unless France had retracted her decrees, 
which was greatly to be doubted. The recent British mea- 
sure, not being the result of an arrangement with America, 
will not have that tendency. For my own part, I have 
always believed that a war with France, if it could be avoided, 
was the idlest thing we could do. We may talk of " un- 
fmiing the republican banner against France " — but, when 
we had unfurled our banner, there would be an end of our 
exploits. This is precisely such a flourish as might be ex- 
pected from a heavy intellect wandering from its ordinary 
track. It is not remembered that if we go to war with 
France, we shall be shut out from the continent of Europe, 
without knowing where it would cease to repel us. It is not 
remembered that in a war with France we might suffer, but 
could not act — that we should be an humble ally without 
hope of honor, and a feeble enemy without a chance of victory. 
It appears to me that the world would stand amazed if we, 
a commercial nation, whose interests are incompatible with 
war, should, upon the instigation of our passions, strut into 
the Usts with gigantic France, with a metaphor in our mouths, 
but with no means of annoyance in our hands, and professing 
to be the champions of commerce, do just enough to provoke 
its destruction and make ourselves ridiculous. 

" Our friends in this country are all of opinion that we 
should take in good part the new order in council, and, suf- 



238 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

fering our restrictive laws to expire, rely upon friendly nego- 
tiation and a change of policy in this government, for the 
further success of our wishes. I can assure you with confi- 
dence, that they would he greatly disappointed and grieved 
^f we should be found to take any other course. Our triumph 
is already considered as a signal one by every body. The 
pretexts with which ministers would conceal their motives 
for a relinquishment of all wliich they prized in their system, 
are seen through ; and it is universally viewed as a concession 
to America. Our honor is now safe, and by managment we 
may probably gain every thing we have in view. A change 
of ministers is not unlikely, and if a change happens, it 
wUl be favorable to us. Every thing conspires to recommend 
moderation, 

" I need not, I am sure, make any apology for myself, 
even although you should think that less has been obtained 
here than ought to have been obtained. I have endeavored 
to do the best with the means put at my disposal, and I have 
avoided committing my government. I am persuaded that 
all that was practicable has been accomplished, and I have 
a strong confidence that, used and followed up as your wisdom 
and that of the legislature will direct, the result will be 
good." 



MR. PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON. 
("Private.) London, August 19th, 1809. 

"Dear Sir :■ — I have had the honor to receive yom- kind 
letter of the 21st of April, and now send the last edition of 
War in Disguise as you request. As we are turning our at- 
tention to wool, I have added a tract lately published here on 
the merino and Anglo-merino sheep, which may be of use. 
I trust that we shall continue to cultivate such manufactures 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 239 

as suit our circumstances. Cottons now and woollens here- 
after must flourish among us. 

"American newspapers have been received here, showing 
that the disavowal of Mr. Erskine's arrangement has excited 
much ferment in the United States. I cannot subdue my 
first regret that it was found to be necessary, at the last 
regular session of Congress, to falter in the course we were 
pursuing, and to give signs of inability to persevere in a sys- 
tem which was on the point of accomphshing all its purposes. 
That it loas found to be necessary, I have no doubt ; but I 
have great doubts whether, if it had fortunately been other- 
wise, we should have had any disavowals. It is to be hoped, 
however, that every thing will yet turn out well. That you 
will do all that can be done at this perilous momeat for the 
honor and advantage of our country, I am sure. 

" I congratulate you heartily on the abundant proofs of 
pubHc confidence which have marked the commencement of 
your administration. I venture to prophesy that they will 
multiply as you advance, and tliat your administration will, 
in its maturity, be identified in the opinions of all men, 
with the strength and character and prosperity of the 
state. 

" You will see from the English Journals that the British 
army in Spain has fought gallantly. They make more of 
this afiair here than perhaps it deserves. 

" The French account will not exactly agree with the 
exulting inferences drawn by the people of England from 
Sir Arthur Wellesley's dispatch, which indeed leaves a great 
deal to inference. 

" It is clear that the allied army greatly outnumbered 
the French — that it was advantageously posted — that if the 
Spaniards (forming the right wing to the amount of upwards 
of 40,000 men) were not actively engaged, they must have oc- 
cupied or kept in check an adequate number of the French, 
or have been in a situation to turn the left flank of the 



240 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKHEY. 

French — that ou the first of these suppositions the British 
(on the left) could not have heen attacked (as is here uni- 
versally supposed) by the luliole French force — that on the 
second supposition, it is quite unaccountable that the French 
were not turned, taken in rear, and utterly exterminated. 

" This splendid victory, after all, amounts to no more 
than a repulse by nearly 70,000 men, enjoying every advan- 
tage of position, of between 40 and 50,000. The loss of the 
British is understood to have been tremendous. What the 
Spanish loss was is not known, but it was no doubt consider- 
able. Sir Arthur Wellesley admits that the French retired 
in the most regular order, and it is not pretended that they 
were pursued or molested in their retreat. 

" We have no data to enable us to judge of the probable 
result of the fm-ther projected operations of the British ex- 
pedition. It will depend of course on the relative strength 
of its opponents, which cannot be otherwise than great. 

"I shall be greatly deceived if France relaxes at this 
time from her decree against neutral rights. I should rather 
have expected additional rigor if General Armstrong had not 
given me reason to hope better things. The maritime arron- 
dissement, now so near its completion, will furnish new induce- 
ments to perseverance in the anti-commercial system. 

" It appears from the newspapers, that Mr. Adams has 
been appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to St. Petersburgh. 
I rejoice at this appointment, for many reasons." 



MR. PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON. 
("Private.) London, Bee. 10th, 1809. 

" Dear Sir : — I see with great pleasure the ground taken 
by the Secretary of State in his correspondence with Mr. 
Jackson, connected with the probabihty that our people are 
recovering from recent delusion, and wiU hereafter be disposed 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 241 

to support with zeal and steadiness the efforts of their 
government to maintain their honor and character. Jack- 
son's course is an extraordinary one, and his manner is little 
better. 

" The British government has acted for some time upon 
an opinion, that its partisans in America were too numerous 
and strong to admit of our persevering in any system of re- 
pulsion to British injustice ; and it cannot be denied that 
appearances countenanced this humiliating and pernicious 
opinion, which has been entertained by our friends. My 
own confidence in the American jieople was great ; but it 
was shaken, nevertheless. I am reassured, however, by pre- 
sent symptoms, and give myself up once more to hope. 
The prospect of returning Adrtue is cheering ; and I trust it 
is not in danger of being obscured and deformed by the re- 
currence of those detestable scenes which only reduced our 
patriotism to a problem. 

" The neiv ministry (if the late changes entitle it to be 
so called) is at least as likely as the last to presume upon 
our divisions. I have heard it said that it was impossible to 
form a cabinet more unfriendly to us, more effectually steeped 
and dyed in all those bad principles which have harassed and 
insulted us. I continue to believe that, as it is now consti- 
tuted, or even with any modifications of which it is suscep- 
tible, it cannot last ; and that it will not choose to hazard 
much in maintaining against the United States the late 
maritime innovations. 

" The people of England are rather better disposed than 
heretofore to accommodate with us. They seem to have 
awaked from the flattering dreams by which their understand- 
ings have been so long abused. Disappointment and disas- 
ter have dissipated the biilliant expectations of undefined 
prosperity which had dazzled them into moral blindness, and 
had cheated them of their discretion as well as of their sense 
of justice. In this state of things America naturally resumes 
16 



242 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

her importance, and lier rights become again intelligible. 
Lost as we were to the view of Englishmen during an over- 
powering blaze of imaginary glory and commercial grandeur, 
we are once more visible in the sober light to which facts 
have tempered and reduced the glare of fiction. The use of 
this opportunity depends upon ourselves, and doubtless we 
shall use it as we ought. 

" It is, after all, perhaps to be doubted whether any thing 
but a general peace (which if we may judge from the past, 
it is not unlikely France will soon propose) can remove all 
dilemma from our situation. More wisdom and virtue than 
it would be quite reasonable to expect, must be found in the 
councils of the two great belligerent parties, before the war 
in which they are now engaged can become harmless to our 
rights. Even if England should recall (and I am convinced 
she could have been, and yet can be, compelled to recall) 
her foolish orders in council, her maritime pretensions will 
still be exuberant, and many of her practices most oppres- 
sive. From France we have only to look for what hostility 
to England may suggest. Justice and enlightened policy 
are out of the question on both sides. Upon France, I fear, 
we have no means of acting with effect. Her ruler sets our 
ordinary means at defiance. We cannot alarm him for his 
colonies, his trade, his manufactures, his revenue. He would 
not probably be moved by our attempts to do so, even if 
they were directed exclusively against himself. He is less 
likely to be so moved while they comprehend his enemy. A 
war with Fruiice, I shall always contend, would not help our 
case. It wouU? aggravate our embarrassments in all respects. 
Our interests w\ uld be struck to the heart by it. For our 
honor it could lo nothing. The territory of this mighty 
power is absoli;».ely invulnerable ; and there is no mode in 
which we could make her feel either physical or moral coer- 
cion. We might as well declare war against the inhabitants 
of the moon or of the Georgium Sidus. When we had pro- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 243 

duced the entire exclusion of our trade from the whole of 
continental Europe, and increased its hazards every where, 
what else could we hope to achieve hy gallantry, or win hy 
stratagem ? Great Britain would go smuggling on as usual; 
Jbut we could neither fight nor smuggle. We should tire of 
so absurd a contest long before it would end (who shall say 
when it should end ?) and we should come out of it, after 
wondering how we got into it, with our manufactures anni- 
hilated by British competition, our commerce crippled by an 
enemy and smothered by a friend, our spirit debased into 
listlessness, and our character deeply injured. I beg your 
pardon for recurring to this topic, upon which I wdll not 
fatigue you with another word, lest I should persecute you 
with many. 

" The ministry are certainly endeavoring to gain strength 
by some changes. It is said that Lord Wellesley is trying 
to bring Mr. Canning back to the cabinet ; and if so, 1 see 
no reason why he should not succeed. One statement is that 
Mr. Canning is to go to the Admiralty — another, that he is 
to return to the Foreign Department, that Lord Wellesley 
is to take the Treasury, and Mr. Percival to relapse into a 
mere Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is added that Lord 
Cambden (President of the Council), and Lord Westmore- 
land (Privy Seal), are to go out. 

" If Mr. Canning should not join his old colleagues before 
the meeting of Parliament, he will probably soon fall into 
the ranks of opposition, where he will be formidable. There 
will scarcely be any scruple in recei\dng him. If he should 
join his old colleagues, they wiU not gain much by him. 
As a debater in the House of Commons, he would be usefiU 
to them ; but his reputation is not at this moment in the 
best possible plight, and his weight and connections are al- 
most nothing. I am not sure that they would not lose by 
him more than they could gain, 

" If Lord Grenville and Lord Grey should be recalled to 



244 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

power, Lord Holland would be likely to have the station 
of Foreign Secretary (Lord Grey preferring, as is said, the 
Admiralty). 

" I believe that I have not mentioned to you that Mr. 
G. H. Rose was to have been the special envoy to our coun- 
try, if Mr. Erskine's arrangement had not been disavowed, 
I am bound to say, that a worse choice could not have been 
made. Since his return to England, he has, I know, mis- 
represented and traduced us with an industry that is abso- 
lutely astonishing, notwithstanding the cant of friendship 
and respect with which he overwhelms the few Americans 
who see him." 



MR. PINKNEY TO MR. MADISON, 
("Private.) London, August \Zth, 1810. 

" Dear Sir : — I return you my sincere thanks for your 
letter of the 23d of May. Nothing could have been more 
acceptable than the approbation which you are so good as 
to express of my note to Lord Wellesley on Jackson's af- 
fairs. I wish I had been more successful in my endeavors 
to obtain an unexceptionable answer to it. You need not 
be told that the actual reply was, as to plan and terms, wide 
of the expectations which I had formed of it. It was, un- 
fortunately, delayed until first views and feelings became 
weak of themselves. The support which Jackson received 
in America was admirably calculated to produce other views 
and feelings, not only by its direct influence on Lord Wel- 
lesley and his colleagues, but by the influence which they 
could not but know it had on the British nation and the 
Parliament. The extravagant conduct of France had the 
same pernicious tendency ; and the appearances in Congress, 
with reference to our future attitude on the subject of the 
atrocious wrongs inflicted upon us by France and England, 
could scarcely be without their efiect. It is not to be 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 245 

doubted that, with a strong desire in the outset to act a 
very conciliatory part, the British government was thus 
gradually prepared to introduce into the proceeding what 
would not otherwise have found a place in it, and to omit 
what it ought to have contained. The subject appeared to 
it every day in a new light, shed upon it from France and 
the United States ; and a corresponding change naturally 
enough took place in the scarcely remembered estimates 
which had at first been made of the proper mode of manag- 
ing it. The change in Lord Wellesley's notion upon it, 
between our first interview and the date of his answer, had, 
without doubt, his full approbation. For, the account of 
this interview, as given in my private letter to Mr. Smith, 
of the 4th of January, is so far from exaggerating Lord 
Wellesley's reception of what I said of him, that it is much 
below it. It is to be observed that he had hardly read the 
correspondence, and had evidently thought very little upon 
it. For which reason, and because he spoke for himself 
only, and with less care than he would, perhaps, have used 
if he had considered that he was speaking officially, I am 
glad that you declined laying my private letter before Con- 
gress. The publication of it, which must necessarily have 
followed, would have produced serious embarrassment. 

" Do you not think that, in some respects. Lord Wel- 
lesley's answer to my note had not been exactly appreciated 
in America ? I confess to you that this is my opinion. 
That the paper is a veiy bad one is perfectly clear ; but it 
is not so bad in intention as it is in reality, nor quite so bad 
in reality as it is commonly supposed to be. 

" It is the production of an indolent man, making a great 
effort to reconcile things almost incongruous, and just show- 
ing his wish without executing it. Lord Wellesley wished 
to be extremely civil to the American government ; but he 
was, at the same time, to be very stately — to manage Jack- 
son's situation — and to intimate disapprobation of the sus- 



246 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

pension of his functions. He was stately, not so mucli from 
design as because he cannot be otherwise. In managing 
Jackson's situation he must have gone beyond his original 
intention, and certainly beyond any of which I was aware 
before I received his answer. If the answer had been 
promptly written, I have no belief that he would have af- 
fected to praise Jackson's 'ability, zeal, and integrity,' or 
that he would have said any thing about his Majesty not 
having ' marked his conduct with any expression of his dis- 
pleasure.' He would have been content to forbear to cen- 
sure him, and that I always took for granted he would do. 

" For Jackson, personally. Lord WeUesley cares nothing. 
In his several conferences with me, he never vindicated him, 
and he certainly did not mean in his letter to undertake 
his defence. It is impossible that he should not have (7 am 
indeed sure that he has) a mean opinion of that most clumsy 
and ill-conditioned minister. His idea always appeared to 
be that he was wrong in pressing at all the topic which gave 
offence ; but that he acted upon good motives, and that his 
government could not with honor, or without injury to the 
diplomatic service generally, disgrace him. This is expli- 
citly stated in my private letter of the 4th of January to 
Mr. Smith. There is great difference, undoubtedly, between 
that idea and the one upon which Lord WeUesley appears 
finally to have acted. It must be admitted, however, that 
the praise betowed upon Jackson is very meagre, and that it 
ascribes to him no qualities in any degree inconsistent with 
the charge of gross indecency and intolerable petulance pre- 
ferred against him in my note. He might be honest, zealous, 
able, and yet be indiscreet, ill-tempered, suspicious, arrogant 
and ill-mannered. It is to be observed, too, this has no ref- 
erence whatever to the actual case, and that, when the an- 
swer Speaks of the offence imputed to Jackson by the Ame- 
rican government, it does not say that he gave no such cause 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 247 

of offence, but simply relies on his repeated asseverations 
that he did not mean to offend. 

" If the answer had been promptly written, I am per- 
suaded that another feature which low distinguishes it would 
have been otherwise. It would not have contained any coiti- 
plaint against the course adopted by the American govern- 
ment in putting an end to official communication witli Jack- 
son. That Lord Wellesley thought that course objectionable 
from the first appears in my private letter above-mentioned 
to Mr. Smith. But he did not urge his objections to it in 
such a way, at our first interview or afterwards, as to induce 
me to suppose that he would except to that course in his 
written answer. He said in the outset that he considered it 
a damnum to the British government, and I know that he 
was not disposed to acknowledge the regularity of it. There 
was evidently no necessity, if he did not approve the course, 
to say any thing about it ; and in our conversations I always 
assumed that it was not only unnecessary but wholly inad- 
missible to mcnt ion it officially for any other purpose than 
that of approving it. 

" After all, however, what he has said upon this point 
(idle and ill-judged as it is) is the mere statement of the 
opinion of the British government, that another course would 
have been more in rule than ours. It amounts to this, then, 
that we have opinion against opinion and practice ; and that 
our practice has been acquiesced in. 

'"'As to that part of the answer which speaks of a charge 
d'affaires, it must now be repented of here, especially by 
Lord Wellesley, if it was really intended as a threat of 
future inequality in the diplomatic establishments of the two 
countries, or even to wear that appearance. Lord Wellesley's 
letter to me of the 22d ult. abandons that threat, and makes 
it consequently much worse than nothing. His explanations 
to me on that head {not official) have lately been, that, when 
he wrote his answer, he thought there was some pesson in 



248 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

America to whom Jackson could have immediately delivered 
his charge, and if he had not heen under that impression, he 
should not probably have spoken in his answer of a charge 
d'affaires, and should have sent out a minister plenipoten- 
tiary in the first instance. 1 know not what stress ought to 
be laid upon those private and ex post facto suggestions ; but 
I am entirely convinced that there was no thought of con- 
tinuing a charge, d'affaires at Washington for more than a 
short time. Neither their pride nor their interests, nor the 
scantiness of their present diplomatic patronage would per- 
mit it. That Lord AVellesley has long been looking out in 
his dilatory luay for a suitable character (a man of rank) 
to send as minister plenipotentiary to the United States, I 
have the best reason to be assured. That the appointment 
has not yet taken place, is no proof at all that it has not 
been intended. Those who think they understand Lord 
Wellesley best, represent him as disinclined to business — and 
it is certain that I have found him upon every occasion 
given to procrastination beyond all example. The business 
of the Chesapeake is a striking instance. Nothing could be 
fairer than his various conversations on that case. He set- 
tles it with me verbally over and over again. He promises 
his written overture in a few days — and I hear no more of 
the matter. There may be cunning in all this, but it is not 
such cunning as I should expect from Lord Wellesley. 

" In the aiiair of the blockades, it is evident that the 
delay arises from the cabinet, alarmed at every thing which 
touches the subject of blockades, and that abominable scheme 
of monopoly called the Orders in Council. Yet it is an un- 
questionable fact that they have suifered, and are suffering 
severely under the iniquitous restrictions which they and 
France have imposed upon the world. 

" I mean to wait a little longer for Lord Wellesley's reply 
to my note of the 30th of April. If it is not soon received, 
I hope I shall not be thought indiscreet if I present a strong 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 249 

remonstrance upon it, and if I take occasion in it to advert 
to the afiair of the Chesapeake, and to expose what has oc- 
curred in that affair between Lord Wellesley and me. 

" I have a letter from General Armstrong of the 24th of 
last month. He expects no change in the measures of the 
FreQch government with regard to the United States. I 
cannot, however, refrain from hoping that we shall have no 
war with that government. We have a sufficient cause for 
war against both France and England — an equal cause 
against both in point of justice, even if we take into the ac- 
count the recent violences of the former. But looking to 
expediency, which shoidd never be lost sight of, I am not 
aware of any considerations that should induce us in actual 
circumstances to embark in a war with France. I have so 
often troubled you on this topic, that I will not venture to 
stir it asain." 



MR. PINKNET TO LORD WELLESLEY. 

"Great Cumbekland Place, Nov. Zd, 1810. 

" My Lord : — In my note of the 25th of August, I had 
the honor to state to your lordship, that I had received from 
the minister plenipotentiary of the United States, at Paris, 
a letter dated the 6th of that month, in which he informed 
me, that he had received from the French government a 
written and official notice, that it had revoked the decrees 
of Berlin and Milan, and that after the first of November, 
those decrees would cease to have any effect ; and I ex- 
pressed my confidence, that the revocation of the British 
orders in council, of January and November, 1807, and 
April, 1809, and of all other orders dependent upon, analo- 
gous to, or in execution of them, would follow of course. 

" Your lordship's reply, of the 31st of August, to that 
note, repeated a declaration of the British minister in Ame- 



250 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

rica, made, as it appears, to tlie government of the United 
States in February, 1808, of ' his Majesty's earnest desire to 
see the commerce of the world restored to that freedom which 
is necessary for its prosperity, and his readiness to abandon 
the system which had been forced upon him, whenever the 
enemy should retract the principles which had rendered it 
necessary ;' and added an official assurance, that, ' whenever 
the repeal of the French decrees should have actually taken 
effect, and the commerce of neutral nations should have been 
restored to the condition in which it stood previously to the 
promulgation of those decrees, his Majesty would feel the 
highest satisfaction in relinquishing a system which the con- 
duct of the enemy compelled him to adopt.' 

" Without departing, in any degree, from my first opin- 
ion, that the United States had a right to expect, upon 
every principle of justice, that the prospective revocation of 
the French decrees would be immediately followed by at 
least a like revocation of the orders of England, I must re- 
mind your lordship, that the day has now passed when the 
repeal of the Berlin and Milan edicts, as communicated to 
your lordship in the note above-mentioaed, and published 
to the whole world by the government of France, in the 
Moniteur of the 9 th of September, was, by the terms of it, 
to take effect. That it has taken effect, cannot be doubted ; 
and it can as little be questioned, that, according to the re- 
peated pledges given by the British government on this 
point (to say nothing of various other powerful considera- 
tions), the prompt relinquishment of the system, to which 
your lordship's reply to my note of the 25th of August 
alludes, is indisj)ensable. 

"I need scarcely mention how important it is to the 
trade of the United States, that the government of Great 
Britain should lose no time in disclosing with frankness and 
precision its intentions on this head. Intelligence of the 
French repeal has reached America, and commercial expe- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 251 

ditions have doubtless been founded upon it. It will have 
been taken for granted that the British obstructions to those 
expeditions, having thus lost the support, which, however in- 
sufBcieut in itself, was the only one that could ever be 
claimed for them, have been withdrawn ; and that the seas 
are once more restored to the dominion of law and justice. 

" I persuade myself that this confidence wiU be substan- 
tially justified by the event, and that to the speedy recall 
of such orders in councd as were subsequent in date to the 
decrees of France, will be added the annulment of the ante- 
cedent order to which my late letter respecting blockades 
particularly relates. But if, notwithstanding the circum- 
stances which invite to such a course, the British govern- 
ment shall have determined not to remove those obstructions 
with all practicable promptitude, I trust that my government 
will be apprised, with as little delay as possible, of a deter- 
mination so unexpected, and of such ^ital concern to its 
rights and interests ; and that the reasons upon which that 
determination may have been formed, will not be withheld 
from it." 



MR. PINKNEY TO MR. SMITH. 

"London, Nov. \^th, 1810. 

" Sir : — I have finally determined not to mention again 
to Lord Wellesley (as I thought of doing) the subject of a 
plenipotentiary successor to Mr. Jackson. I think, upon re- 
flection (and shall act accordingly), that I ought, after what 
has passed, to leave him, without further inquiry or notice 
on my part, to shape his course upon it ; and that, if an ap- 
pointment shoidd not be made as soon as the king's health 
(which would seem to be improving) will permit, I ought at 
once to send in an ofiicial note, announcing my resolution to 
return to America, and to leave some suitable person as a 
chargt d'affaires. 



252 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

" My letter of the 23d of July informed you that after 
Lord Wellesley's written assurance of the 22d of that month 
(which was in conformity, as far as it went, with his as- 
surances in conversation), ' that it was his intention imme- 
diately to recommend the appointment of an envoy extra- 
ordinary and minister plenipotentiary from the king to the 
United States,' I did not think myself authorized to take the 
step which the instructions contained in your letter of the 
23d of May, in certain circumstances, prescribed. 

" My opinion was, that whether the prospect which then 
existed of bringing to a conclusion the affair of the Chesa- 
peake, were taken into the account or not, it was my obvious 
duty to remain at my post, most irksome as it was every day 
becoming, until it should incontestably appear that those 
assurances were not to be relied upon. 

" Before a sufficient time had elapsed to warrant so harsh 
a conclusion, I received from Lord Wellesley, on the 28th 
of August, a farther casual intimation (reported to you in 
my letter of the 29th of the same month) that his recom- 
mendation of a minister would, as he believed, be made in 
the course of that week or the next. 

" In the mean time the repeal, by the government of 
France, of the Berlin and Milan decrees, had produced a 
posture of affairs which, whatever might be Lord Wellesley's 
forgetfulness of his own declarations, or the inattention of his 
government to what he might advise in consequence of them, 
rendered my stay in England for two or three months longer, 
indispensable. 

" In fine, the effect of that consideration had not ceased 
when the illness of the king made it impossible that I 
should depart. 

" Upon the king's recovery, I shaU have every motive for 
bringing this matter to an issue, and none for the least hesi- 
tation or reserve upon it. Several months have been allowed 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 253 

for the performance of an act whicli might have been com- 
pleted in as many weeks. 

" I shall have done every thing in my power on the sub- 
jects connected with the revocation of the French edicts. 
And the British government will be in a situation to admit 
of such proceedings on its own part and on mine as the occa- 
sion will require, 

" From Lord Wellesley's intimation to me on the 28th 
of August (mentioned above), it is perfectly clear, that he 
had not then executed the intention so positively announced 
in his note of the 22d of July. Five or six weeks had 
passed, and that which he had both said and written he 
meant to do immediately, he was not yet sure that he meant 
to do within another fortnight. The presumption seems, 
nevertheless, to be quite unnatural, that Lord Wellesley con- 
tinued, up to the commencement of the king's malady, to be 
negligent of a pledge, which he chose to rest not merely on 
his official but his personal character — a pledge, of which he 
knew I could neither question the sufficiency nor doubt the 
sincerity, and by which, as he also knew, my conduct on an 
extremely delicate point of duty was wholly determined. 

" On the other hand, if Lord Wellesley has been mind- 
ful of his pledge, and has recommended a minister in com- 
pliance with it, how has it happened (how can it have 
happened) that this recommendation has not been followed 
by an appointment. 

" In the midst of all this doubt, which Lord Wellesley 
might dissipate if he pleased by an explanation apparently 
necessary for his own sake, there is, as I believe, no uncer- 
tainty as to the course which, in the actual state of my in- 
structions (or on the score of general propriety), I ought to 
pursue ; especially as I must infer, from your silence since the 
arrival of Mr. Morier at Washington (if I had no other 
reason for that inference), that no such communication was 



254 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

made, either by or through that gentleman to you, as ought 
in the judgment of the President to have any influence upon 
my conduct on this occasion." 

MK. PINKNEY TO LOKD WELLESLEY. 

" Great Cumbeeland Place, December 10th, 1810. 

"My Lord: — In compliance with the request contained 
in your note of the 6th instant, I proceed to recapitulate in 
this letter (^vith some variations however) the statements 
and remarks which I had tlie honor to make in our confer- 
ence of the 5th, respecting the revocation of the French de- 
crees, as connected with a change of system here on the sub- 
ject of neutral rights. 

" Your lordship need not be told that I should have been 
happy to offer, at a much earlier moment, every explanation 
in my power on matters of such high concern to the rights 
and commerce of my country, and the future character of its 
foreign relations, if I had been made to understand that ex- 
planation was desired, 

" My written communications of August and November 
were concise, but they were not intended to be insufficient. 
They furnished e\ddence which I thought conclusive, and ab- 
stained from labored commentary, because I deemed it su- 
perfluous. I had taken up an opinion, wliich I abandoned 
reluctantly and late, that the British government would be 
eager to foUow the example of France in recalling, as it had 
professed to do m promulgating, that extraordinary system 
of maritime annoyance, which, in 1807, presented to neutral 
trade, in almost all its directions, the hopeless alternative of 
inactivity or confiscation ; which considered it as a subject to 
be regulated, like the trade of the United Kingdoms, by the 
statutes of the British Parliament ; and undertook to bend 
and fashion it by every variety of expedient to all the pur- 
poses and even the caprices of Great Britain. I had no idea 



LIFE OF WILLIAM TINKNEY. 255 

that the remnant of that system, productive of no conceiva- 
ble advantage to England, and deservedly odious for its the- 
ory and destructive effects, to others, could survive the pub- 
lic declaration of France that the edicts of BerUu and Milan 
were revoked. Instructed at length, however, by your lord- 
ship's continued silence, and alarmed for ih.Q property of my 
fellow citizens, now more than ever exposed by an erroneous 
confidence, to the ruinous operation of the British orders, I 
was preparing to support my general representations by de- 
tailed remonstrance, when I received the honor of your note 
of the 4th instant. In the conference which ensued, I trou- 
bled your lordship with a verbal communication, of which 
the following is nearly the substance. 

"The doubts which appear to stand in the way of the 
recaU of the British orders in council ( under which denomi- 
nation I include certain orders of blockade of a kindred prin- 
ciple and spirit), must refer to the manner, or the terms, or 
the 2)ractical effect of the alleged repeal of the decrees of 
France. 

'' That the manner of the proceeding is satisfactory to 
the British government cannot be questioned ; since it is 
precisely that in which its own numerous orders for establish- 
ing, modifying, or removing blockades and other maritime 
obstructions, are usually proclaimed to neutral states and 
merchants. 

" The French repeal was officially notified on the 5th of 
August, to the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United 
States at Paris, by the French minister for foreign affairs ; 
as I had the honor to inform your lordship in my letter of the 
25th of the same month, which not only gave the import, 
but (as the inclosed copy will show), adopted the words of 
General Armstrong's statement to me of the tenor and effect 
of that notice. 

" On the 9th of August the notification to General Arm- 
strong was published in the Moniteur, the official journal of 



256 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

the French government, as the act of that government ; and 
thus became a formal declaration, and a public pledge to all 
who had an interest in the matter of it. 

" It would be a waste of time to particularize the numer- 
ous instances of analogous practice in England, by which 
this course is countenanced ; but a recent example happens 
to be before me, and may therefore be mentioned. The par- 
tial recall or modification of the English blockade of the 
ports and places of Spain, from Gijon to the French terri- 
tory (itself known to my government only through a circular 
notification to me recited afterwards in the London Gazette), 
was declared to the American and other governments in ex- 
actly the same mode. 

" I think it demonstrable that the tey^ms in which the 
French revocation was announced, are just as free from well 
founded objection as the manner. 

" Your lordship's view of them is entirely unknown to 
me ; but 1 am not ignorant that there are those in this coun- 
try who, professing to have examined them with care, and 
having certainly examined them with jWoms?/, maintain that 
the revocation on the 1st of November, was made to depend 
by the obvious meaning of those terms, upon a condition 
precedent which has not been fulfilled, namely — the revoca- 
tion by Great Britain of her orders in councU, including such 
blockading orders as France complains of as being illegal. 

"If this were even admitted to be so, I am yet to learn 
upon what grounds of justice the British government could 
decline to meet, by a similar act on its part, an advance thus 
made to it by its adversary, in the face of the world, towards 
a co-operation in the great work of restoring the liberty of 
the ocean ; so far, at least, as respects the orders in council of 
180V and 1809, and such blockades as resemble them. It 
is not necessary, however, to take this view of the question ; 
for the French revocation turns on no condition precedent, is 
absolute, precise and unequivocal. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 257 

" What construction of the document which declares that 
revocation might be made by determined suspicion and dis- 
trust, I have no wish, and am not bound to inquire. Such 
interpreters would not be satisfied by any form of words, and 
would be likely to draw the same conclusion from perfect ex- 
plicitness and studied obscurity. It is enough for me that 
the fair and natural and necessary import of the paper af- 
fords no color for the interpretation I am about to examine. 

" The French declaration ' that the decrees of Berlin and 
Milan Are Revoked, and that from the first of November 
they will cease to have any effect,' is precision itself But 
they are followed by these words : 'bien entendu qu'en 
consequence de cette declaration les Anglois revoqueront 
leurs arrets du conseil, et renonceront aux nouveaux i)rin- 
cipes de blocus qu'ils ont voulu etablir, ou bien que les Etats 
Unis, conformement a Vacte que vous venez communique, feront 
respecter leur droits par les Anglois.' 

" If these words state any condition, they state two, the 
first depending upon Great Britain, the last upon the United 
States : and as they are put in the disjunctive, it would be 
extravagant to hold that the non-performance of one of them 
is equivalent to the non-performance of both. I shall take 
for granted, therefore, that the argument against my con- 
struction of the Duke of Cadore's letter must be moulded 
into a new form. It must deal with two conditions instead 
of one, and considering them equally as conditions jDrecedent 
to be performed (disjunctively) before the day limited for the 
operative commencement of the French rei^eal, must main 
tain that if neither of them should be performed before that 
day, the decrees were not to be revoked, and, consequently, 
that as neither of them has been so performed, the decrees 
are still in force. 

" If this hypothesis of previous conditions, thus reduced 
to the only shape it can assume, be proved to be unsound, 
my construction is at once established ; since it is only upon 
17 



258 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

that hypothesis that any doubt can be raised against the ex- 
act and perspicuous assurance that the decrees were actually 
repealed, and that the repeal would become effectual on the 
1st of November. This hypothesis is proved to be unsound, 
by the following consideration. 

" It has clearly no foundation in the phraseology of the 
paper, which does not contain a syllable to put any condition 
before the repeal. The repeal is represented as a step al- 
ready taken, to have effect on a day specified. Certain con- 
sequences are, indeed, declared to be expected from this pro- 
ceeding ; but no day is given, either expressly or by implica- 
tion, within which they are to happen. It is not said, ' bien 
entendu que les Anglois auront revoque,' &c., but ' que les 
Anglois revoqueront,' &c., indefinitely as to time, 

" The notion of conditions precedent is, therefore, to say 
the least of it, perfectly gratuitous. But it is also absurd. 
It drives us to the conclusion, that a palpable and notorious 
impossibility was intended to be prescribed as a condition, 
in a paper which they who think it was meant to deceive, 
must admit was meant to be plausible. 

" It was a palpable and notorious impossibility, that the 
United States should, before the 1st of November, execute 
any condition, no matter what the nature of it, the per- 
tormance of which was to follow the ascertained failure of a 
condition to be executed by Great Britain at a7ii/ time be- 
fore the same 1st of November. That the act expected from 
the United States was to be consequent upon the failure of 
the other, is apparent. It is also apparent, that upon any 
interpretation which would make the act of Great Britain a 
condition precedent to the French repecd, and consequently 
precedent to the 1st of November (when the repeal was, if 
ever, to take effect), that condition could not be said to have 
failed before the whole period, from the 5th of August to the 
1st of November, had elapsed. But if Great Britain had 
had the whole time, within which to elect the course which 



LIFE OF WILLIAM TINKNER. 259 

she would pursue, what opportunity would be left to the 
United States (equally bound, upon this idea of conditions 
precedent, to act their part within the same period), to be- 
come acquainted with that election, and to decide upon and 
take their own course in consequence ; to snj nothing of the 
transmission of such intelligence of it to Europe as would be 
indispensable to the efficacy of the conditional revocation. 

This general view would be sufficient to discredit the ar- 
bitrary construction under consideration. But it will be 
more completely exposed by an explanation of the nature of 
the act, which the latter professes to expect from the United 
States, in case Great Britain should omit to revoke. This 
act is the revival of the non-intercourse law against Eng- 
land, France remaining exempt from it, as well as from the 
provisions of the subsequent law, commonly called the non- 
intercourse act. Now, if it is too plain, upon the face of the 
last mentioned law (to which the letter expressly refers) to 
escape the most negligent and unskilful observer, that this 
revival could not, by any industry or chance, be accom- 
plished before the time fixed for the cessation of the French 
decrees, or even for a considerable time afterwards, it cer- 
tainly cannot be allowable to assume, that the revival was 
required by the letter (whatever was the object of the writer 
or his government) to precede the cessation. And if this 
was not required, it is incontrovertible that the cessation 
would, by the terms of the letter, take place on the ap- 
pointed day, whether any of the events disjunctively speci- 
fied had inter\'ened or not. 

" The first step towards a revival of the non-intercourse 
against England would be the proclamation of the Pre- 
sident, that France had so revoked or modified her edicts, as 
that they ceased to violate the neutral commerce of the 
United States. But the letter of Monsieur Cliampagny left 
the decrees, as it found them, up to the first of November, 
and, consequently, itp to that day it could not, for any thing 



260 LIFE OF WILLIAM FINKNEY. 

contained in that letter, be said that the rights of American 
commerce were no longer infringed by them. A prospective 
proclamation, that they tvould cease to violate those rights^ 
might, perhaps, be issued ; but it could scarcely have any 
substantial operation, either in favor of France or to the 
prejudice of England, until the epoch to which it looked had 
arrived. 

"Let it be admitted, however, that all physical and 
legal obstacles to the issuing, before tlie first of November, of 
a proclamation, to take effect immediately, were out of the 
way — how would such a proceeding fulfil, of itself, the ex- 
pectation that the United States would, before the first of 
November, " cause their rights to be respected by the Eng- 
lish," in the mode pointed out in the letter, namely, by the 
enforcement of the non-intercourse law ? The proclamation 
would work no direct or immediate co^nsequence against 
England. Three months from its date must pass away be- 
fore the non-intercourse law could revive against her ; and 
when it did so, the revival would not be the effect of the 
proclamation, but of the continued adherence of England to 
her obnoxious system. Thus, even if a proclamation, effec- 
tual from its date, had been issued by the President on the 
day when the French declaration of repeal came to the hands 
of the American minister at Paris, the intercourse between 
the United States and Great Britain would, on the first of 
November, have remained in the same condition in which it 
was found in August. As all this was well understood by 
the government of France, the conclusion is, that its minis- 
ter, professing too to have the American law before him, and 
to expect only what was conformable with that latv, did not 
intend to require the revival of the non-intercourse against 
England as a condition to be performed before the first of 
November. 

"It is worthy of remark, as introductory to another 
view of this subject, that even they who conclude that the 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 261 

repeal of the French decrees has feilecl are not backward to 
ascribe to the French declaration a purpose utterly incon- 
sistent with that conclusion. They suppose the purpose to 
have been to affect the existing relations between America 
and England, by the only means which the declaration 
states, the act of non-intercourse. And it is certain that 
unless England should abandon particular parts of her sys- 
tem, this ivas the result avo"svedly in view, and meant to be 
accomplished. But there could be no hope of such a result 
without a previous effectual relinquishment of the French 
decrees. A case could not otherwise be made to exist (as 
the Duke of Cadore w^as aware) for such an operation of the 
American law. To put the law before the revocation of the 
edicts was impossible. With the law in his hand it would 
have been miraculous ignorance not to know that it was the 
exact reverse of this which his i)aper must propose. He 
would derive this knowledge, not from tliat particular law 
only, but from the whole tenor and spirit of American pro- 
ceedings, in that painful and anomalous dilemma, in which 
Great Britain and France, agreeing in nothing else, had re- 
cently combined to place the maritime interests of America. 
He would collect from those proceedings that, while those 
conflicting powers continued to rival each other in their ag- 
gressions ujion neutral rights, the government of the United 
States would oppose itself impartially to both. The French 
declaration, then, had either no meaning at all, or it meant 
to announce to General Armstrong a positive revocation of 
the French edicts. 

" I should only fatigue your lordship by pursuing farther 
a point so plain and simple. I will, therefore, merely add 
to what I have already said on this branch of the subject, 
that the strong and unqualified communication from Gene- 
ral Armstrong: to me, mentioned in the commencement of 
this letter, and corroborated by subsequent communications 
(one of which I now lay before you), may, perhaps, without 



262 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

any great effort of courtesy, be allowed to contain that 
" authentic intelligence " which your lordship is in search of. 
He could scarcely have been free from doubt if the occasion 
was calcidated to suggest it^ and if he had really doubted, 
would hardly have spoken to me with the confidence of 
conviction. 

" It only remains to speak of the practical effect of the 
French repeal. And here your lordship must suffer me to 
remind you that the orders of England in 1807, did not 
wait for the practical effect of the Berlin decree, nor linger 
till the obscurity, in which the meaning of that decree was 
supposed to be involved, should be cleared away by time 
or explanation. They came promptly after the decree it- 
self, while it was not only ambiguous but inoperative, and 
raised upon an idle prohibition, and a yet more idle declara- 
tion, which France had not attempted to enforce, and was 
notoriously incapable of enforcing a vast scheme of oppres- 
sion upon the seas, more destructive of all the acknow- 
ledged rights of peaceful states than history can parallel. 
This retaliation, as it was called, was so rapid, that it was 
felt before the injury which was said to have provoked it ; 
and yet, that injury, such as it was, was preceded by the 
practical assertion, on the part of Great Britain, of new and 
alarming principles of public law, in the notification of the 
blockade of May, 1806, and in the judicial decisions of the 
year before. To uphold the retaliatory orders, every thing 
was presumed with a surprising facility. Not only was an 
impotent, unexecuted, and equivocal menace presumed to be 
an active scourge of the commerce of neutral nations, but 
the acquiescence of those nations was presumed against the 
plainest evidence of facts. 

" The alacrity with which all this was done can never be 
remembered without regret and astonishment ; but our re- 
gret and astonishment must increase, if, after four years 
have been given to the pernicious innovation, which these 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 263 

presumptions were to introduce and support, something like 
the same ahicrity should not be displayed in seizing an hon- 
orable ojjportunity of discarding it for ever. 

" It is not unnatural to imagine that it iviJl he discard- 
ed with pleasure, tvhcn it is considered., that having never 
been effectual as an instrument of hostility, it cannot now 
lay claim to those otJicr recommendations for which it may 
have heretofore been prized. The orders in council of No- 
vember have passed through some important changes ; but 
they have been steady, as long as it was possible, to the 
purpose which Jirst impressed on them, a character not to he 
mistaken. 

" In their original plan, they comprehended not only 
France and such allied or dependent powers as had adoi)ted 
the edict of Berhn, but such other nations as had merely ex- 
cluded from their ports the commercial flag of England. 
This prodigious expansion of the system, was far beyond any 
intelligible standard of retaliation; but it soon appeared 
that neutrals might be j)ermitted to traffic under certain re- 
strictions, with all these different nations, provided they 
would submit with a dependence tndy colonial, to carry on 
their trade through British ports, and to pay such duties as 
the British government should think fit to impose, and sucli 
charges as British agents and other British subjects might 
be content to make. 

" The United States abstained from this traffic, in which 
they could not embark without dishonor ; and in 1809, the 
system shrunk to narrower dimensions, and took the appear- 
ance of an absolute prohibition of all commercial intercourse 
with France, Holland, and the kingdom of Italy. 

" The prohibition was absolute in appearance, but not 
in fact. It had lost something of former exuberance, but 
nothing of former pliancy, and in the event was seen to 
yield to the demands of one trade, while it prevented every 
other. 



264 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

" Controlled and relaxed and managed by licenses, it did 
not, after a brief exhibition of impartial sternness, affect to 
" distress the enemy " by the occlusion of his ports, when the 
commerce of England could advantageously find its way to 
them. At length, however, this convenience seems to be en- 
joyed no longer, and the orders in council may apparently be 
now considered (if indeed they ought not always to have 
been considered) as affecting England with a loss as heavy 
as that which they inflict on those whose rights they 
violate. In such circumstances, if it be too much to expect 
the credulity of 1807, it may yet be hoped, that the evidence 
of the practical effect of the French repeal need not be very 
strong to be satisfactory. It is however as strong as the 
nature of such a case will admit, as a few observations wUl 
show. 

" On such an occasion it is no paradox to say, that the 
want of evidence is itself evidence : That certain decrees are 
not in force, is proved by the absence of such facts as would 
appear if they ivere in force. Every motive which can be 
conjectured to have led to the repeal of the edicts, invites to 
the full execution of that repeal, and no motive can be 
imagined for a different course. These considerations are 
alone conclusive. 

" But farther, it is known that American vessels bound 
confessedly to England, have, before the 1st of November, 
been visited by French privateers, and suffered to pass upon 
the foundation of the prospective repeal of the decree of 
Berlin, and the proximity of the day when it would become 
an actual one. 

" If there are not even stronger facts to show that the 
decree of 3Iilan is also withdrawn, your lordship can be at 
no loss for the reason. It cannot be proved that an Ameri- 
can vessel is practically held by France. Not to be de- 
nationalized by British visitation, because your cruisers visit 
only to capture, and compel the vessel visited to terminate 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 265 

her voyaf,fc not in France, but in England. You will not ask 
for the issue of an experiment which yourselves intercept, 
nor complain that you have not received evidence, which is 
not obtained because you have rendered it impossible. The 
vessel which formed the subject of my note of the 8th inst., 
and another more recently seized as a prize, would, if they 
had been suffered, as tltcTj onrjlit^ to resume their voyages after 
having been stopped and examined by English cruisers, 
have furnished on that point unanswerable proof ; and I 
have reason to know, that precise offers have been made to 
the British government to put to a j)ractical test the dispo- 
sition of France in this respect, and that those offers have 
been refused. Your cruisers, however, have not been able to 
visit all American vessels bound to France, and it is under- 
stood, that such as have arrived have been received with 
friendship. 

" I cannot quit this last question without entering my 
protest against the pretension of the British government to 
postpone the justice which it owes to my government and 
country, for this tardy investigation of consequences. I am 
not able to comprehend upon what the pretension rests, nor 
to what limits the investigation can be subjected. If it were 
even admitted that France was more emphatically bound to 
repeal her almost nominal decrees than Great Britain to re- 
peal her substantial orders (which will not be admitted), 
what more can reasonably be required by the latter than has 
been done by the former ? The decrees are officially de- 
clared by the government of France to be repealed. They 
were ineffectual as a material prejudice to England before 
the declaration, and must be ineffectual since. There is 
therefore nothing of substance for this dilatory inquiry, 
which if once begun may be protracted without end, or at 
least till the hour for just 2uxA i:>rudtnt decision has passed. 
But, if there were room to apprehend that the repealed de- 
crees might have some operation in case the orders in coun- 



266 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

cil were withdrawn, still, as there is no sudden and formida- 
ble peril to which Great Britain could be exposed by that 
operation, there can be no reason for declining to act at once 
upon the declaration of France, and to leave it to the fu- 
ture to try its sincerity, if that sincerity be suspected. 

" I have thus disclosed to your lordship, with that frank- 
ness which the times demand, my view of a subject deeply 
interesting to our respective countries. The part which 
Great Britain may act on this occasion cannot fail to have 
important and lasting consequences, and I can only wish 
that they may be good. 

" By giving up her orders in council and the blockades, 
to which my letter of the 21st of September relates, she has 
nothing to lose in character or strength. By adhering to 
them, she will not only be unjust to others but unjust to 
herself." 



MR. PINKNET TO LORD WELLESLEY. 

"Great Cumberland Place, Jan. 14, 1811. 

" My Lord : — I have received the letter which you did 
me the honor to address to me on the 29th of last month, 
and will not fail to transmit a copy of it to my government. 
In the mean time I take the liberty to trouble you with the 
following reply, which a severe indisposition has prevented 
me from preparing sooner. 

" The first paragraph seems to make it proper for me to 
begin by saying, that the topics introduced into my letter of 
the 10th of December, were intimately connected with its 
principal subject, and fairly used to illustrate and explain 
it ; and consequently, that if they had not the good fortune 
to be acceptable to your lordship, the fault was not mine. 

" It was scarcely possible to speak with more moderation 
than my paper exhibits, of that portion of a long list of in- 
vasions of the rights of the United States, which it necessa- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 267 

rily reviewed, and of the apparent reluctance of the British 
government to forbear those invasions in future, I do not 
know that I could more carefully have abstained from what- 
ever might tend to disturb the spirit which your lordship 
ascribes to his majesty's government, if, instead of being 
utterly barren and unproductive, it had occasionally been 
visible in some practical result, in some concession cither to 
friendship or to justice. It would not have been very sur- 
prising, nor very culpable perhaps, if I had wholly forgotten 
to address myself to a spiiit of conciliation, which had met 
the most equitable claims with steady and unceasing repul- 
sion ; which had yielded nothing that could be denied ; and 
had answered complaints of injury by multiplying their 
causes. With this forgetfulness, however, I am not charge- 
able ; for, against all the discouragements suggested by the 
past, I have acted still upon a presumption that the dispo- 
sition to conciliate, so often professed, would finally be 
proved by some better evidence than a perseverance in 
ojipressive novelties, as obviously incompatible with such a 
disposition in those who enforce them, as in those whose 
patience they continue to exercise. 

" Upon the commencement of the second paragraph, 
I must obsen^e, that the forbearance which it announces 
might have afforded some gi-atification, if it had been fol- 
lowed by such admissions as my government is entitled to 
expect, instead of a further manifestation of that disregard 
of its demands, by which it has so long been wearied. It 
has never been my practice to seek discussions, of which the 
tendency is merely to irritate ; but I beg your lordship to be 
assured, that I feel no desire to avoid them, whatever may 
be their tendency, when the rights of my country require to 
be vindicated against pretensions that deny, and conduct that 
infringes them. 

" If I comprehend the other parts of your lordship's 
letter, they declare in effect, that the British government 



268 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

will repeal nothing but the orders in council, and that it 
cannot at present repeal even them, because in the first 
place, the French government has required, in the letter of 
the Duke of Cadore to General Armstrong, of the 5th of 
August, not only that Great Britain shall revoke those 
orders, but that she shall renounce certain principles of 
blockade (supposed to be explained in the preamble to the 
Berlin decree) which France alleges to be new ; and, in the 
second place, because the American government has (as you 
conclude) demanded the revocation of the British order of 
blockade of May, 1806, as a practical instance of that same 
renunciation, or, in other words, has made itself a party, not 
openly indeed, but indirectly and covertly, to the entire re- 
quisition of France, as you understand that requisition. 

" It is certainly true that the American government has 
required, as indispensable in the view of its acts of inter- 
course and non-intercourse, the annulment of the British 
blockade of May, 1806 ; and further, that it has through me 
declared its confident expectation that other blockades of a 
similar character (including that of the island of Zealand) 
will be discontinued. But by what process of reasoning 
your lordship has arrived at the conclusion, that the govern- 
ment of the United States intended by this requisition to 
become the champion of the edict of Berlin, to fashion its 
principles by those of France while it affected to adhere to 
its own, and to act upon some partnership in doctrines, which 
it would fain induce you to acknowledge, but could not pre- 
vail upon itself to avow, I am not able to conjecture. The 
frank and honorable character of the American government 
justifies me in saying that, if it had meant to demand of 
Great Britain an abjuration of all such principles as the 
French government may think fit to disapprove, it would not 
have put your lordship to the trouble of discovering that 
meaning by the aid of combinations and inferences discoun- 
tenanced by the language of its minister, but- would have 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 269 

told you so in explicit terms. What I have to request of 
your lordship, therefore, is, that you will take our views and 
principles from our own mouths, and that neither the Berlin 
decree, nor any other act of any foreign state, may be made 
to speak for us what we have not spoken for ourselves. 

*' The principles of blockade which the American govern- 
ment professes, and upon the foundation of which it has repeat- 
edly protested against the order of May, 1806, and the other 
kindred innovations of those extraordinary times, have 
already been s» clearly explained to your lordship, in my 
letter of the 21st of September, that it is hardly possible to 
read that letter and misunderstand them. Eecommended 
by the plainest considerations of universal equity, you will 
find them supported Avith a strength of argument and a 
weight of authority, of which they scarcely stand in need, 
in the papers which will accompany this letter, or were trans- 
mitted in that of September. I will not recapitulate what 
I cannot improve ; but I must avail myself of this oppor- 
tunity to call your lordship's attention a second time, in a 
particular manner, to one of the papers to which my letter 
of September refers. I allude to the copy of an official note 
of the 12th of April, 1804, from Mr. Merry to Mr. Madison, 
respecting a pretended blockade of Martinique and Guada- 
loupe. No comment can add to the value of that manly 
and perspicuous exposition of the law of blockade, as made 
by England herself in the maintenance of rules which have 
been respected and upheld in all seasons and on all occasions, 
by the government of the United States. I will leave it, 
therefore, to your lordship's consideration, with only this re- 
mark, that, while that paper exists, it will be supei-fluous to 
seek in any French document for the opinions of the Ameri- 
can government on the matter of it. 

" The steady fidelity of the government of the United 
States to its opinions on that interesting subject is known to 
every body. The same principles which are found in the 



270 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

letter of Mr Madison to Mr. Thornton, of the 27th of Octo- 
ber, 1803, already before yoii, were asserted in 1799, by the 
American Minister at this conrt, in his correspondence with 
Lord Grenville, respecting the blockade of some of the ports 
of Holland ; were sanctioned in a letter of the 20th of Sep- 
tember, 1800, from the Secretary of State of the United 
States to Mr. King, of which an extract is enclosed ; were 
insisted upon in repeated instructions to Mr. Monroe and the 
special mission of 1806 ; have been maintained by the 
United States against others as well as agaipst England, as 
will appear by the enclosed copy of instructions, dated the 
21st of October, 1801, from Mr. Secretary Madison to Mr. 
Charles Pinckuey, then American Minister at Madrid ; and 
finally, were adhered to by the United States, when bellig- 
erent, in the case of the blockade of Tripoli. 

"A few words will give a summary of those principles ; 
and when recalled to your remembrance, I am not without 
hopes, that the strong grounds of law and right, on which 
they stand, will be as apparent to your lordship as they are 
to me. 

"It is by no means clear that it may not fairly be con- 
tended, on principle and early usage, that a maritime block- 
ade is incomplete with regard to states at peace, unless the 
place which it would affect is invested by land as well as by 
sea. The United States, however, have called for the recog- 
nition of no such rule. They appear to have contented them- 
selves with urging in substance, that ports not actually 
blockaded by a present, adequate, stationary force, employed 
by the power which attacks them, shall not be considered as 
shut to neutral trade in articles not contraband of war ; that, 
though it is usual for a belligerent to give notice to neutral 
nations when he intends to institute a blockade, it is possi- 
ble 'that he may not act upon his intention at all, or that he 
may execute it insufficiently, or that he may discontinue his 
blockade, of which it is not customary to give any notice ; 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 271 

that consequently the presence of the blockading force, is the 
natural criterion by which the neutral is enabled to ascertain 
the existence of the blockade at any given period, in like 
manner as the actual investment of a besieged place, is the 
evidence by which we decide whether the siege, which may 
be commenced, raised, recommenced and raised again, is con- 
tinued or not ; that of course a mere notification to a neutral 
minister shall not be relied upon, as affecting, with know- 
ledge of the actual existence of a blockade, either his govern- 
ment or its citizens ; that a vessel cleared or bound to a 
blockaded port, shall not be considered as violating 'in any 
manner the blockade, unless, on her approach towards such 
port, she shall have been previously warned not to enter it ; 
that this view of the law, in itself perfectly correct, is pecu- 
liarly important to nations situated at a great distance from 
the belligerent parties, and therefore incapable of obtaining 
other than tardy information of the actual state of their 
ports ; that whole coasts and countries shall not be declared 
(for they can never be more than declared) to be in a state 
of blockade, and thus the right of blockade converted into 
the means of extinguishing the trade of neutral nations ; 
and lastly, that every blockade shall be impartial in its ope- 
ration, or, in other words, shall not open and shut for the 
convenience of the party that institutes it, and at the same 
time repel the commerce of the rest of the world, so as to be- 
come the odious instrument of an unjust monopoly, instead 
of a measure of honorable war. 

" These princi])les are too moderate and just to furnish 
any motive to the British government for hesitating to re- 
voke its orders in council, and those analogous orders of 
blockade, which the United States exj^ect to be recalled. It 
can hardly be doubted that Great Britain will ultimately 
accede to them in their fullest extent ; but if that be a san- 
guine calculation (as I trust it is not), it is still incontrover- 
tible, that a disinclination at this moment to acknowledge 



272 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

them, can suggest no national inducement for declining to 
repeal at once what every principle disowns, and what must 
be repealed at last. 

" With regard to the rules of blockades, which the 
French government expects you to abandon, I do not take 
upon me to decide whether they are such as your lordship 
supposes them to be or not. Your view of them may be 
correct ; but it may also be erroneous ; and it is wholly im- 
material to the case between the United States and Great 
Britain, whether it be the one or the other. 

" As to such British hlockades as the United States de- 
sire you to relinquish, you will not, I am sure, allege that it 
is any reason for adhering to them that France expects you 
to relinquish others. If our demands are suited to the 
measure of our own rights, and of your obligations as they 
respect those rights, you cannot think of founding a rejection 
of them upon any imputed exorbitance in the theories of the 
French government, for which we are not responsible, and 
with which we have no concern. If, when you have done 
justice to the United States, your enemy should call upon 
you to go farther, what shall prevent you from refusing ? 
Your free agency will in no respect have been impaired. 
Your case will be better, in truth and in the opinion of man- 
kind ; and you will be, therefore, stronger in maintaining it, 
provided that, in doing so, you resort only to legitimate 
means, and do not once more forget the rights of others, 
while you seek to vindicate your own. 

" Whether France will be satisfied with what you may 
do, is not to be known by anticipation, and ought not to be 
a subject of inquiry. So vague a speculation has nothing 
to do with your duties to nations at peace, and, if it had, 
would annihilate them. It cannot serve your interests ; for 
it tends to lessen the number of your friends, without add- 
ing to your security against your enemies. 

" You are required, therefore, to do right, and to leave 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 273 

the consequences to the future, when by doing right you 
have every thing to gain and nothing to lose. 

" As to the orders in council^ which professed to be a re- 
luctant departure from all ordinary rules, and to be justified 
only as a system of retaliation for a pre-existing measure of 
France, their foundation (such as it was) is gone the mo- 
ment that measure is no longer in operation. But the Ber- 
lin decree is repealed : and even the Milan decree, the suc- 
cessor of your orders in council, is repealed also. Why is it 
then, that your orders have outlived those edicts, and that 
ther are still to oppress and harass as before ? Your lord- 
ship answers this question explicitly enough, but not satis- 
factorily. You do not allege that the French decrees are 
not rejiealed ; but you imagine that the repeal is not to re- 
main in force, unless the British government shall, in addi- 
tion to the revocation of its orders in council, abandon its 
system of blockade. I am not conscious of having stated, 
as your lordship seems to think, that this is so, and I believe 
in fact, that it is otherwise. Even if it were admitted, how- 
ever, the orders in council ought nevertheless to be revoked. 
Can 'the safety and honor of the British nation,' demand 
that these orders shall continue to outrage the public law of 
the world, and sport with the undisi^uted rights of neutral 
commerce, after the pretext which was at first invented for 
them is gone ? But you are menaced with the revival of 
the French system, and consequently may again be furnished 
with the same pretext ! Be it so ; yet still, as the system 
and the pretext are at i^resent at an end, so, of course, should 
be your orders, 

" According to your mode of reasoning, the situation of 
neutral trade is hopeless indeed. Whether the Berlin decree 
exists or not, it is equally to justify your orders in council. 
You issued them before it was any thing but a shadow, and 
by doing so gave to it all the substance it could ever claim. 
It is at this moment nothing. It is revoked and has passed 
18 



274 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

away, according to your own admission. You cTioose, how- 
ever, to look for its reappearance ; and you make your own 
expectation equivalent to the decree itself. Compelled to 
concede that there is no anti-neutral French edict in opera- 
tion upon the ocean, you think it sufficient to say that there 
will be such an edict, you know not when ; and in the mean 
time you do all you can to verify your" own prediction, by 
giving to your enemy all the provocation in your power to 
resume the decrees which he has abandoned. 

" For my part, my Lord, I know not what it is that the 
British government requires, with a view to what it calls its 
safety and its lionor, as an inducement to rescind its orders 
in council. It does not, I presume, imagine that such a 
system will be suffered to ripen into law. It must intend to 
relinquish it, sooner or later, as one of those violent experi- 
ments for which time can do nothing, and to which submis- 
sion will be hoped in vain. Yet even after the professed 
foundation of this mischievous system is taken away, another 
and another is industriously procured for it, so that no man 
can teU at what time, or under what circumstances, it is 
likely to have an end. When realities cannot be found, pos- 
sibilities supply their place, and that, wliich was originally 
said to be retaliation for actual injury, becomes at last (if 
such a solecism can be endured or imagined) retaliation for 
apprehended injuries, which the future may or may not pro- 
duce, but which it is certain have no existence noio ! 

"I do not mean to grant, for I do not think, that the 
edict of Berlin did at any time lend even a color of equity 
to the British orders in council, with reference to the United 
States ; but it might reasonably have been expected that 
they, who have so much relied upon it as a justification, 
would have suffered it and them to sink together. How this 
is forbidden by your safety or your honor remains to be ex- 
plained ; and I am not willing to beheve that either the one 
or the other is inconsistent with the observance of substan- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 275 

tial justice, and with the prosperity and rights of peaceful 
states. 

" Although your lordship has slightly remarked upon cer- 
tain recent acts of the French government, and has spoken 
in general terms of ' the system of violence and injustice now 
pursued by France,' as requiring ' some precautions of de- 
fence on the part of Great Britain,' I do not perceive that 
you deduce any consequence from these observations, in favor 
of a perseverance in the orders in council. I am not myself 
aware of any edicts of France which, now that the Berlin 
and Milan decrees are repealed, aifect the rights of neutral 
commerce on the seas. And you will yourselves admit that 
if any of the acts of the French government, resting on ter- 
ritorial sovereignty, have injured, or shall hereafter injure, 
the United States, it is for them, and for them only, to seek 
redress. In like manner it is for Great Britain to determine 
what precautions of defence those measures of France, which 
you denominate unjust and violent, may render it expedient 
for her to adopt. The United States have only to insist, 
that a sacrifice of their rights shall not be among the number 
of those precautions. 

" In replying to that passage in your letter, which ad- 
verts to the American act of non-intercourse, it is only ne- 
cessary to mention the proclamation of the President of the 
United States, of the 2d of November last, and the act of 
congress which my letter of the 21st of September commu- 
nicated, and to add that it is in the power of the British gov- 
ernment to prevent the non-intercourse from being enforced 
against Great Britain. 

" Upon the concluding paragraph of your letter I will 
barely observe, that I am not in possession of any document, 
which you are likely to consider as authentic, showing that 
the French decrees are ' absolutely revoked upon the single 
tondition of the revocation of the British orders in council,' 
mi that the information, which I have lately received from 



276 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

the American Legation at Paris, confirms what I have 
ah'eady stated, and I think proved to your lordship, that 
those decrees are repealed and have ceased to have any effect. 
I will now trespass on you no farther than to suggest, that 
it would have given me sincere pleasure to be enabled to say 
as much of the British orders in council, and of the blockades 
from which it is impossible to distinguish them." 



ME. PINKNEY TO LORD WELLESLEY. 

"Great Cumberland Place, February llth, 181L 

" My Lord : — Before I reply to your official communi- 
cation of the 15th instant, you will perhaps allow me, in 
acknowledging the receipt of the unofficial paper which ac- 
companied it, to trouble you with a few words. 

" From the appointment which you have done me the 
honor to announce to me of a minister plenipotentiary to the 
United States, as well as from the language of your j)rivate 
letter, I conclude that it is the intention of the British gov- 
ernment to seek immediately those adjustments with Ame- 
rica, without which, that appointment can produce no bene- 
ficial effect. I presume, that, for the restoration of harmony 
between the two countries, the orders in council will be re- 
linquished without delay ; that the blockade of May 1806 
will be annulled ; that the case of the Chesapeake will be 
arranged in the manner heretofore intended, and, in general, 
that all such just and reasonable acts will be done as are 
necessary to make us friends. 

" My motives will not, I am sure, be misinterpreted, if, 
anxious to be enabled so to regulate my conduct in the ex- 
ecution of my instructions as that the best results may be 
accomplished, I take the liberty to request such explana- 
tions on these heads as your lordship may think fit to give 
me. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 277 

" I ought to add, that, as the levee of his royal highness 
the prince regent has been postponed until Tuesday the 26th 
instant, I have supposed that my audience of leave is post- 
poned to the same day ; and that I have, on that ground, 
undertaken to delay my reply to your official communication 
until I receive an answer to tliis letter." 



MR. SMITH TO MR. PINKNET 

"March 1th, 1811. 

" Sir : — If, as signified in your letter of the 24th of No- 
vember, you should persist in the desire of closing your mis- 
sion at London and of returning to the United States, I have 
to inform you that the President, from his resj)ect to your 
wishes, cannot withhold his permission. You will accordingly 
herewith receive a letter of leave, to be used in such case or 
in the case pointed out in former instructions. 

" It affords me pleasure, and at the same time real happi- 
ness, in being authorized to assure you of the high sense en- 
tertained by the President, of the distinguished talents and 
faithful exertions of which you have given so many proofs 
during a period of public service, frequently not less embar- 
rassing than interesting. 

"A blank commission is also inclosed, to be filled, in case 
of your return to the United States, with the name of some 
suitable person as secretary of legation." 



MR. PINKNEY TO THE MARQUIS DI CIRCELLO. 

"Naples, August 24<//, 1816. 

" The undersigned, envoy extraordinary of the United 
States of America, has already had the honor to mention to 
his excellency the Marquis di Circello, secretary of state and 
minister for foreign affairs of his majesty the king of the two 



278 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

Sicilies, the principal objects of his mission ; and he now in- 
vites his excellency's attention to a more detailed and formal 
exposition of one of those objects. 

" The undersigned is sure that the appeal, which he is 
about to make to the well known justice of his Sicihan 
majesty, in the name and by the orders of his government, 
will receive a dehberate and candid consideration ; and that, 
if it shall appear, as he trusts it will, to be recommended by 
those principles which it is the interest as well as the duty 
of all governments to observe and maintain, the claim in- 
volved in it will be admitted, effectually and promptly. 

" The undersigned did but obey the instructions of the 
President of the United States, when he assured his excel- 
lency the Marquis di Circello, at their first interview, that 
his mission was suggested by such sentiments towards his 
Sicilian majesty as could not fail to be approved by him. 
Those sentiments are apparent in the desire which the Pres- 
ident has manifested, through the undersigned, that the 
commercial relations between the territories of his majesty 
and those of the United States should be cherished by re- 
ciprocal arrangements, sought in the spirit of enlightened 
friendship, and with a sincere view to such equal advantages, 
as it is for nations to derive from one another. The repre- 
sentations which the undersigned is commanded to make 
upon the subject of the present note, will be seen by his 
majesty in the same light. They show the firm rehance of 
the President upon the disposition of the court of Naples 
impartially to discuss and ascertain, and faithfully to dis- 
charge its obligations toward foreign states and their citizens; 
a reliance which the undersigned partakes with his govern- 
ment ; and under the influence of which, he proceeds to 
state the nature and grounds of the reclamation in ques- 
tion. 

" It cannot but be known to his excellency the Marquis 
di Circello, that, on the 1st of July, 1809, the minister for 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 279 

foreign affairs of the then government of Naples, addressed 
to Frederick Degan, Esq., then consul of the United States, 
an official letter, containing an invitation to all American 
vessels, having on board the usual certificates of origin and 
other regular papers, to come direct to Naples with their 
cargoes ; and that the same minister caused that invitation 
to be pubhshed in every possible mode, in order that it might 
come to the knowledge of those whom it concerned. It will 
not be questioned that the promise of security necessarily 
implied in this measm-e had every title, in the actual circum- 
stances of Europe, to the confidence of distant and peaceful 
merchants. The merchants of America, as was to have been 
expected, did confide. Upon the credit and under the pro- 
tection of that promise, they sent to Naples many valuable 
vessels and cargoes, navigated and documented with scru- 
pulous regularity, and in no respect obnoxious to molestation ; 
but scarcely had they reached the destination to which they 
had been allured, when they were seized, without distinction, 
as prize, or as otherwise forfeited to the Neapolitan govern- 
ment, upon pretexts the most frivolous and idle. These 
arbitrary seizures were followed, with a rapacious haste, by 
summary decree, confiscating in the name and for the use 
of the same government, the whole of the property which 
had thus been brought within its grasp ; and these decrees, 
which wanted even the decent affectation of justice, were 
immediately carried into execution against aU the remon- 
strances of those whom they oppressed, to enrich the treasury 
of the state. 

" The undersigned persuades himself, that it is not in a 
note addressed to the Marquis di Circello, that it is neces- 
sary to enlarge upon the singularly atrocious character of 
this procedure, for which no apology can be devised, and for 
which none that is intelligible has hitherto been attempted. 
It was, indeed, an undisguised abuse of power of which 
n thing could well enhance the deformity, but the studied 



280 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

deception that preceded and prepared it ; a deception whicli, 
by a sort of treason against society, converted a profler of 
hospitality into a snare, and that salutary confidence, with- 
out which nations and men must cease to have intercourse, 
into an engine of plunder. 

" The right of the innocent victims of this unequalled 
act of fraud and rapine, to demand retribution, cannot be 
doubted. The only question is, from whom are they entitled 
to demand it ? Those, who at that moment ruled in Na- 
ples, and were in fact and in the view of the world, the gov- 
ernment of Naples, have passed away before retribution 
could be obtained, although not before it was required ; and, 
if the right to retribution regards only the persons of those 
rulers as private and ordinary wrong- doers, the American 
merchants, whom they deluded and despoiled in the garb and 
with the instruments and for the purposes of sovereignty, 
must despair for ever of redress. 

"The undersigned presumes, that such is not the view 
which the present government will feel itself justified in 
taking of this interesting subject ; he trusts that it will, on 
the contrary, perceive that the claim which the injured mer- 
chant was authorized to prefer against the government of 
this country before the recent change, and which, but for 
that change, must sooner or later have been successful, is 
now a valid clai)n against the government of the same coun- 
try, notwithstanding that change. At least, the undersigned 
is not at present aware of any considerations which, applied 
to the facts that characterize this case, can lead to a differ- 
ent conclusion ; and certainly it would be matter for sincere 
regret, that any consideration should be thought sufficient 
to make the return of his Sicilian majesty's power fatal to 
the rights of friendly strangers, to whom no fault can be 
ascribed. 

" The general principle that a civil society may contract 
obligations through its actual government, whatever that 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 281 

may be, and that it is not absolved from them by reason 
simply of a change of government or of rulers, is universally 
received as incontrovertible. It is admitted, not merely by 
writers on public law, as a speculative truth, but by states 
and statesmen, as a practical rule ; and, accordingly, his- 
tory is full of examples to prove, that the undisturbed pos- 
sessor of sovereign power in any society, whether a rightful 
possessor or not, with reference to other claimants of that 
power, may not only be the lawful object of allegiance, but 
by many of his acts, in his quality of sovereign do facto, 
may bind the society, and those who come after him as 
rulers, although their title be adverse to, or even better than 
his own. The Marquis di Circello does not need to be in- 
formed, that the earlier annals of England, in particular, 
abound in instructions upon this head. 

"With regard to just and beneficial contracts, entered 
into by such a sovereign with the merchants of foreign na- 
tions, or (which is the same thing), with regard to the deten- 
tion and confiscation of their property for public uses, and 
by his authority, in direct violation of a pledge of safety, 
upon the faith of which that property arrived within the 
reach of confiscation, this continuing responsibility stands 
upon the plainest foundations of natural equity. 

" It will not be pretended, that a merchant is called upon 
to investigate, as he prosecutes his traffic, the title of every 
sovereign, with whose ports, and under the guarantee of 
whose plighted word, he trades. He is rarely competent. 
There are few in any station who are competent to an inves- 
tigation so full of delicacy, so perplexed with facts and prin- 
ciples of a peculiar character, far removed from the common 
concerns of life. His predicament would be to the last de- 
gree calamitous, if, in an honest search after commercial 
profit, he might not take governments as he finds them, and 
consequently rely at all times upon the visible, exclusive ac- 
knowledged possession of suj)reme authority. If he sees all 



282 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

the usual indications of established rule ; all the distinguish- 
ing concomitants of real undisputed power, it cannot be that 
he is at liis peril to discuss mysterious theories above his ca- 
pacity or foreign to liis pursuits, and moreover, to connect 
the results of those speculations with events of which his 
knowledge is either imperfect or erroneous. If he sees the 
obedience of the people, and the acquiescence of neighboring 
princes, it is impossible that it can be his duty to examine, 
before he ships his merchandise, whether it be fit that these 
should acquiesce, or those obey. If, in short, he finds 
nothing to interfere with or qualify the dominion which the 
head of the society exercises over it, and the domain which 
it occupies, it is the dictate of reason, sanctioned by all ex- 
perience, that he is bound to look no farther. 

" It can be of no importance to him that, notwithstand- 
ing all these appearances announcing lawful rule, the mere 
right to fill the throne is claimed by, or even resides in, 
another than the actual occupant. The latent right (sup- 
posing it to exist), disjoined from and controverted by the 
fact, is to him nothing wliile it continues to be latent. It 
is only the sovereign in possession that it is in his power 
to know. It is with him only that he can enter into engage- 
ments. It is through him only that he can deal with the 
society. And if it be true, that the sovereign in possession 
is incapable, on account of a conflict of title between him and 
another, who barely claims, but makes no effort to assert his 
claim ; of pledging the public faith of the society and of the 
monarch to foreign traders, for commercial and other objects, 
we are driven to the monstrous conclusion, that the society 
is, in effect and indefinitely, cut off from all communication 
with the rest of the world. It has, and can have, no organ 
by which it can become accountable to, or make any contract 
with foreigners, by which needful supplies may be invited 
into its harbors, by which famine may be averted, or redun- 
dant productions be made to find a market in the wants of 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 283 

strangers. It is, in a word, an outcast from tlic bosom of 
the great community of nations, at the very moment too, 
when its existence, in the form which it has assumed, may 
every where be admitted. And, even if the dormant claim 
to the throne should, at last, by a fortunate coincidence of 
circumstances, become triumphant, and unite itself to the 
possession, this harsh and palsying theory has no assurance 
to give, either to the society or to those who may incUne to 
deal with it, that its moral capacity is restored, that it is 
an outcast no longer, and that it may now, through the pro- 
tecting will of its new sovereign, do what it could not do 
before. It contains, of course, no adequate and certain pro- 
vision against even the perpetuity of the dilemma wliich it 
creates. If, therefore, a civil society is not competent, by 
rules in entire possession of the sovereignty, to enter into all 
such promises to the members of other societies as necessity 
or convenience may require, and to remain unanswerable for 
the breach of them, into whatsoever shajje the society may 
ultimately be cast, or into whatsoever hands the government 
may ultimately fall ; if a sovereign, entirely in possession, is 
not able, for that reason alone, to incur a just responsibility, 
in his political or corporate character, to the citizens of other 
countries, and to transmit that responsibility, even to those 
who succeed him by displacing him, it will be difficult to 
show that the moral capacity of a civil society is any thing 
but a name, or the responsibility of sovereigns any thing but 
a shadow. And here the undersigned will take the liberty 
to suggest, that it is scarcely for the interest of sovereigns to 
inculcate as a maxim, that their lost dominions can only be 
recovered at the expense of the unoffending citizen of states 
in amity, or, which is equivalent to it, to make that recovery 
the practical consummation of intermediate injustice, by ut- 
terly extinguishing the hope of indemnity and even the title 
to demand it. 

" The undersigned will now, for the sake of perspicuity 



284 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

and precision, recall to tlie recollection of Ms excellency the 
Marquis di Circello, the situation of the government of Murat 
at the epoch of the confiscation in question. Whatever 
might he the origin or foundation of that government, it 
had for some time been established. It had obtained such 
obedience as in such times was customary, and had mani- 
fested itself, not only by active internal exertions of legis- 
lative and executive powers, but by important external 
transactions with old and indisputably regular governments. 
It had been (as long afterwards it continued to be) recognized 
by the greatest potentates, as one of the European family 
of states, and had interchanged with them ambassadors, and 
other public ministers and consuls. And Great Britain, by 
an order in council of the 26th of April, 1809, which modi- 
fied the system of constructive blockade, promulgated by the 
orders of November, 1807, had excepted the Neapolitan ter- 
ritories, with other portions of Italy, from the operation of 
that system, that neutrals might no longer be prevented 
from trading with them. 

" Such was the state of things when American vessels 
were tempted into Naples, by a reliance upon the passports 
of its government, to which perfidy had lent more than ordi- 
nary solemnity, upon a declaration as explicit, as it was for- 
mal and notorious, that they might come without fear, and 
might depart in peace. It was under these circumstances, 
that, instead of being permitted to retire with their lawful 
gains, both they and their cargoes were seized and appro- 
priated in a manner already related. The undersigned may 
consequently assume, that if ever there was a claim to com- 
pensation for broken faith, which survived the political power 
of those whose iniquity produced it, and devolved in full 
force upon their successors, the present claim is of that de- 
scription. 

"As to the demand itself, as it existed against the gov- 
ernment of Murat, the Marquis di Circello will undoubtedly 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 285 

be the first to concede, not only that it is above reproach, 
but that it rests upon grounds in which the civilized world 
has a deej) and lasting interest. And with regard to the li- 
ability of the present government as standing in the place of 
the former, it may be taken as a corollary from that conces- 
sion ; at least until it has been shown, that it is the natural 
fate of obligations, so high and sacred, contracted by a gov- 
ernment in the full and tranquil enjoyment of power, to per- 
ish with the first revolution, either in form or rulers, through 
which it may happen to pass ; or (to state the same proposi- 
tion in different terms), that it is the natural operation of a 
political revolution in a state, to strip unfortunate traders, 
who have been betrayed and plundered by the former sove- 
reign, of all that his rapacity could not reach — the right of 
reclamation. 

" The wrong which the government of Murat inflicted 
upon American citizens, wanted nothing that might give 
to it atrocity, or effect, as a robbery introduced by treachery ; 
but however pernicious or execrable, it was still reparable. 
It left in the sufferers and their nation a right, which was not 
likely to be forgotten or abandoned, of seeking and obtaining 
ample redress, not from Murat simply (who individually was 
lost in the sovereign), but from the government of the coun- 
try, whose power he abused. By what course of argument 
can it be proved, that this incontestable right, from which 
that government could never have escaj)ed, has been destroy- 
ed by the reaccession of his Sicilian majesty, after a long in- 
terval, to the sovereignty of the same territories ? 

" That such a result cannot in any degree be inferred from 
the misconduct of the American claimants, is certain ; for 
no misconduct is imputable to them. They were warranted 
in every view of the public law of Europe, in holding com- 
mercial communication with Naj^les in the predicament in 
which they found it, and in trusting to the direct and au- 
thentic assurances, which the government of the place af- 



286 XIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

fected to tlirow over tliem as a shield against every danger. 
Their shipments were strictly within the terms of those as- 
surances ; and nothing was done, hy the shippers or their 
agents, by which the benefit of them might be lost or im- 
paired. 

" From what other source can such a result be drawn ? 
Will it be said that the jjroceeds of the confiscations were 
not applied to public purposes during the sovereignty of 
Murat, or that they produced no public advantages, with 
reference to which the present government ought to be lia- 
ble ? The answer to such a suggestion is, that let the fact 
be as it may, it can have no influence upon the subject. It 
is enough that the confiscations themselves, and the promise 
of safety which they violated, were acts of state, proceeding 
from him who was then, and for several successive years, the 
sovereign. The derivative liability of the present govern- 
ment reposes, not upon the good, either public or private, 
which may have been the fruit of such a revolting exhibition 
of power, emancipated from all the restraints of principle, 
but upon the general foundation, which the undersigned has 
already had the honor to expose. 

" To follow the joroceeds of these spoliations into the pub- 
lic treasury, and thence to all the uses to which they were 
finally made subser\dent, can be no part of the duty of the 
American claimant. It is a task which he has no means of 
performing, and which, if performed by others, could neither 
strengthen his case nor enfeeble it. And it may confidently 
be insisted, not only that he has no concern with the partic- 
ular application of these proceeds, but that, even if he had, 
he would be authorized to rely upon the presumption, that 
they were applied as public money to public ends, or left in 
the public cofiers. It must be remembered, moreover, that 
whatever may have been the destiny of these unhallowed 
spoils, they cannot well have failed to be instrumental in me- 
liorating the condition of the country. They afibrded extra- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 287 

ordinary pecuniary means, which, as far as they extended, 
must have saved it from an augumentation of its burdens ; 
or by reUeving the ordinary revenue, made that revenue ad- 
equate to various improvements, either of use or beauty, 
which otherwise it could not have accomplished. The terri- 
tories, therefore, under the sway of Murat, must be supposed 
to have returned to his Sicilian majesty much less exhausted, 
more embellished, and more prosperous, than if the property 
of American citizens had not in the mean time been sacri- 
ficed to cupidity and cunning. It must further be remem- 
bered, that a part of that property was notoriously devoted 
to the public service. Some of the vessels seized by the or- 
ders of Murat, were, on account of their excellent construc- 
tion, converted into vessels of war, and as such commissioned 
by the government ; and the undersigned is informed that 
they are now in possession of the officers of his Sicilian ma- 
jesty, and used and claimed as belonging to him. 

" The undersigned having thus briefly explained to the 
Marquis di Circello, the nature of the claim which the gov- 
ernment of the United States has commanded him to submit 
to the reflection of the government of his Sicilian majesty, 
forbears at present to multiply arguments in support of it. 
He feels assured that the equitable disposition of his majesty 
renders superfluous the further illustrations of which it is sus- 
ceptible." 



288 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 



MISSOURI QUESTION. 

It was a splendid spectacle the American Senate Cham- 
ber presented, according to contemporaneous authority, the 
day that William Pinkney arose to ]3articipate in this mo- 
mentous discussion. The reputation of the speaker, just 
transplanted from the forum to that garden of American 
legislators, and the magnitude of the question involved, ex- 
cited the public mind to the highest state of expectation, 
and brought to the Capitol such a crowd as has rarely if ever 
been gathered witliin its walls. Eufus King, an honored son 
of New- York, a gentleman of enlarged views and command- 
ing abilities, who had borne a conspicuous part in the foreign 
service of his country as well as her deliberative councils at 
home, was then a Senator. He was a splendid s^DCcimen of 
a man, and wore his varied honors with wondrous grace. — 
Otis, Dana, Barbour, Macon and Burril, were his distin- 
guished associates in this first deliberative assembly of the 
world. Mr. King felt the grandeur and responsibility of the 
occasion. The country he knew had a deep interest at stake. 
He knew also that many eyes were upon him, that he was 
now called upon to give to the country and the world the 
closing speech of his life, and leave behind him the noblest 
exposition he could of the constitution. That speech was 
delivered. Its eloquent warnings filled the land. Many 
prided themselves upon this effort of the distinguished and 
venerable champion of the North. A gentleman rose to re- 
ply to it, who was not altogether a stranger to the Senate. 
He came from an arena, on which his powers had been tested 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 289 

by the strongest men of the land ; and if he stood not " quite 
alone, he had confessedly no superior." Fresh, too, fiom a 
diplomatic service, in which he had evinced his usual abihty 
and discretion, he brought with him to that Senate Chamb.er 
a world-wide reputation. Already upon this very question, 
his voice had been heard in a most admirable and powerful 
speech ; so that, although little more than six weeks a mem- 
ber of the body, we are justified in saying that he was not 
altogether a stranger. New to the scene ; inexperienced in 
senatorial life he was, but still not unknown. Deep was the 
interest awakened in the public mind by this approaching 
conflict, in which Maryland's favorite son was to measure a 
lance -mih the veteran statesman of New- York, It was not 
a mere personal feeling, not a vainglorious conflict of rival- 
ry, that caused them to assume this antagonistic position. 
That would have been unworthy of the Senate and the 
country. It was a high constitutional question that divided 
them. It was a grave conflict of opinion that made up the 
struggle. Mr. King had chosen his position — selected his 
ground — marshalled his arguments — arrayed his facts. He 
came thoroughly equipped to the battle. The chosen rep- 
resentatives of the views of a portion of the northern wing of 
the confederacy, he was no mean antagonist. The North had 
spoken, weU and powerfully, through him. Pinkucy arose. 
The occasion was one of imposing sublimity — the scene 
worthy of the occasion, and the advocate, with whom he was 
now brought in direct collision, worthy of both. 

The talent, the taste, and beauty of the land were 
there. Crowd upon crowd thronged the galleries. Every 
nook and corner of the large, capacious hall was filled almost 
to suffocation. Hundreds went away disappointed, unable 
to catch a glimpse of the orator or a tone of his powerful 
and melodious voice. AU business was suspended in the 
Lower House, for the representatives from all parts of the 
Union participated to the full in the common desire to wit- 
19 



290 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

ness this conflict of mind with mind. The whole country 
was alive. The public peace and safety had been seriously 
threatened. Mr. King's dark and dismal picturings had no 
tendency to allay the popular apprehension or quiet the 
public agitation. Some hoped — others feared. All partook 
more or less of the intense anxiety. Pinkney arose. The 
very novelty of the scene, and the sight of a new antagonist 
upon a field of such thrilling issues, where all his long che- 
rished principles of constitutional interpretation so thor- 
oughly coincided with the position he occupied, only tended 
to give greater impetus and wider scope to the workings of 
his giant intellect. It was in opposition that Mr. Pinkney 
exhibited to most advantage his wondrous power. Not far 
from the spot where Webster subsequently encountered 
Hayne, he stood.. There was unusual fire in his fine blue 
eye, and exulting hope. Strong in the confidence he reposed 
in the views he entertained of the constitution, he was not 
less strong in his reliance " upon the unsophisticated good 
sense of the American people.*' Taking up that glorious 
charter of our liberties, and following- Mr. King step by step 
in argument and illustration, he poured forth the treasures 
of his mind with a keenness of analysis and a copiousness and 
concentration of reasoning, that annihilated at once and for 
ever the position of his opponent. This speech more than 
sustained the reputation of the orator, and gratified to the 
full the highest expectations of the audience. It was a sur- 
prising combination of eloquence and argument, beauty and 
strength, amplitude and condensation. Although a close 
and severe logical discussion, it rivetted attention, and 
called forth as extraordinary panegyric as was ever vouch- 
safed to any other parliamentary effort. That speech is a 
sort of beacon light, by which men may make the most ex- 
traordinary developments of oratorical power and ability of 
argument. One of the most significant proofs of its power 
was the fact, that Rufus King never answered it. I have 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY 291 

been told, upon what I think good authority, that Mr. King 
himself, with a magnanimity worthy of all praise, took occa- 
sion to say that, during the time Mr. Pinkn^y was speaking, 
he could not shake oif the impression that he must be 
wrong 

A not less significant proof of the rare power of this 
speech may be found in the fact, that even learned historians 
at the North, blinded by prejudice, have -conspired with 
stump orators and pamphleteers to misrepresent grossly the 
views expressed, and the line of argument pursued on that 
occasion. Hildreth states (vol. 6, 689), that " Pinkney ap- 
peared on the other side as leading orator for the extension 
of slavery." And again, "that Pinkney and Clay, both of 
whom had begun their political career with earnest efibrts 
for the curtailment and abolition of slavery in their respec- 
tive States, were now among the most vehement advocates 
for its extension all over the new West." Let any one read 
the speech, and if he does not see through the thinly veiled 
misrepresentation and misconception of this author, he must 
be bhnd, indeed. Mr. Pinkney stood up in detience of the 
constitution. He stood by the States, maintained their 
original and indestructible equahty, and denied that you 
" could make the Union as to the new States what it is not 
as to the old." He deprecated the introduction of such ex- 
traneous matter as had been unwisely forced into the discus- 
sion, and unwove the web so artistically wowen by the Sen- 
ator from New- York. It was not a discussion on slavery at 
all. It was a bare, naked, constitutional question, and as 
such Mr. Pinkney treated it. 

It excites a smile to read a little further on in the pages 
of this recondite historian. " That the idea" that Congress 
had no power to impose conditions in the admission of new 
States, " was ridiculous." It may be that the principles of 
constitutional law, so eloquently enforced by Mr. Pinkney in 
this speech, and so extensively indorsed, are, after aU, mere 



292 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

dreams of the imagination, sickly notions, which, after 
stalking through the halls of legislation like ghosts, struck 
northern statesmen dumb, may be dispelled by one wave of 
the historic wand, never more to mislead or confound the 
world. It may be that argument unanswered will sink be- 
fore "assertion without proof" — but really, Mr. Hildreth 
must excuse us if we prove a little refractory, and refuse to 
acknowledge any idea ridiculous, which is sustained by such 
power of argument and force of eloquence. When an histo- 
rian manifests such carelessness (I had well nigh said, reck- 
lessness of assertion), he must bear with us if we demur to 
his decision of grave points of constitutional law, which he 
has neither the capacity to decide, nor the authority. 

We ask a perusal of the speech, and although it must 
suffer from the imperfection of the report, we have no fears 
concerning it. It is a gem of American eloquence, that has 
lost nothing of its splendor in its passage through the cruci- 
ble of an unsparing criticism : — 

SPEECH ON THE MISSOURI QUESTION. 

As I am not a very frequent speaker in this Assembly, 
and have shown a desire, I trust, rather to listen to the wis- 
dom of others, than to lay claim to superior knowledge by 
undertaking to advise, even when advice, by being seasona- 
ble in point of time, might have some chance of being profi- 
table, you Avill, perhaps, bear with me if I venture to trouble 
you once more on that eternal subject which has lingered 
here, until all its natural interest is exhausted, and every 
topic connected with it is literally worn to tatters. I shall, 
I assure you, sir, speak with laudable brevity — not merely 
on account of the feeble state of my health, and from some 
reverence for the laws of good taste which forbid me to speak 
otherwise, but also from a sense of justice to those who honor 
me with then- attention. My single purpose,, as I suggested 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 293 

yesterday, is to subject to a friendly, yet close examination, 
some portions of a speech, imposing certainly on account of 
the distinguished quarter from whence it came — not very 
imposing (if I may so say, without departing from that re- 
spect which I sincerely feel and intend to manifest for emi- 
nent abilities and long experience) for any other reason. 

I believe, Mr. President, that I am about as likely to 
retract an opinion which I have formed, as any member of 
this body, who, being a lover of truth, inquires after it with 
diligence before he imagines that he has found it ; but I sus- 
pect that we are all of us so constituted as that neither ar- 
gument nor declamation, levelled against recorded and pub- 
lished decision, can easily discover a practicable avenue 
through which it may hope to reach either our heads or our 
hearts. I mention this, lest it may excite surprise, when I 
take the liberty to add, that the speech of the honorable 
gentleman from New- York, upon the great subject with 
which it was principally occupied, has left me as great an 
infidel as it found me. It is possible, indeed, that if I had 
had the good fortune to hear that speech at an earlier stage 
of this debate, when all was fresh and new, although I feel 
confident that the analysis which it contained of the consti- 
tution, illustrated as it was by historical anecdote rather than 
by reasoning, would have been just as unsatisfactory to me 
then as it is noio, I might not have been altogether unmoved 
by those warnings of approaching evil which it seemed to 
intimate, especially when taken in connection with the obser- 
vations of the same honorable gentleman on a preceding day, 
"that delays in disposing of this subject, in the manner he 
desires, are dangerous, and that we stand on slippeiy ground." 
I must be permitted, however (speaking only for myself), 
to say, that the hour of dismay is passed. I have heard the 
tones of the larum bell on all sides, until they have become 
familiar to my ear, and have lost their power to appall, if, 
indeed, they ever possessed it. Not'svithstanding occasional 



294 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

appearances of rather an unfavorable description, I have long 
since persuaded myself that the Missouri Question, as it is 
called, might be laid to rest, with innocence and safety, by 
some conciliatory compromise at least, by which, as is our 
duty, we might reconcile the extremes of conflicting ^dews 
and feelings, without any sacrifice of constitutional principle; 
and in any event, that the Union would easily and trium- 
phantly emerge from those portentous clouds with which this 
controversy is supposed to have en\'ironed it. 

I confess to you, nevertheless, that some of the princi- 
ples announced by the honorable gentleman from New-York,'-'-" 
with an explicitness that reflected the highest credit on his 
candor, did, when they were first presented, startle me not a 
little. They were not perhaps entirely new. Perhaps I had 
seen them before in some shadowy and doubtful shape, 
'• If shape it might be called, that shape had none 
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb." 

But in the honorable gentleman's speech they were shadowy 
and doubtful no longer. He exliibited them in forms so 
boldly and accurately defined — with contours so distinctly 
traced — with features so pronounced and striking, that I was 
unconscious for a moment that they might be old acquaint- 
ances. I received them as 7iovi hospites within these walls, 
and gazed upon them with astonishment and alarm. I have 
recovered, however, thank Grod, from this paroxysm of terror, 
although not from that of astonishment. I have sought 
and found tranquillity and courage in my former consolatory 
faith. My reliance is that these principles will obtain no 
general currency ; for, if they should, it requires no gloomy 
imagination to sadden the perspective of the future. My 
reliance is upon the unsophisticated good sense and noble 
spirit of the American people. I have what I may be al- 
lowed to call a proud and patriotic trust, that they will give 
countenance to no principles, which, if followed out to theii 
* jNIr. King. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 295 

obvious consequences, will not only shake the goodly fabric 
of the Union to its foundations, but reduce it to a melan- 
choly ruin. The people of this country, if I do not wholly 
mistake their character, are wise as well as virtuous. They 
know the value of that federal association which is to them 
the single pledge and guarantee of power and peace. Their 
warm and pious affections will cling to it as to their only hope 
of prosperity and happiness, in defiance of pernicious ab- 
stractions, by whomsoever inculcated, or howsoever seductive 
and alluring in their aspect. 

Sir, it is not an occasion like this, although connected, 
as contrary to all reasonable exi)Cctation it has been, with 
fearful and disorganizing theories, which would make our 
estimates, whether fanciful or sound, of natural law, the 
measure of civil rights alxl political sovereignty in the social 
state, that can harm the Union. It must, indeed, be a 
mighty storm that can push from its moorings this sacred 
ark of the common safety. It is not every trifling breeze, 
however it may be made to sob and howl in imitation of the 
tempest, by the auxiliary breath of the ambitious, the timid, 
or the discontented, that can drive this gallant vessel, 
freighted with every thing that is dear to an American bo- 
som, upon the rocks, or lay it a sheer hulk upon the ocean. 
I may perhaps mistake the flattering suggestions of hope 
(the greatest of aU flatterers, as we are told), for the conclu- 
sions of sober reason. Yet it is a pleasing error, if it be an 
error, and no man shall take it from me. I will continue to 
cherish the belief, in defiance of the public patronage given 
by the honorable gentleman from New- York, Avith more 
than his ordinary zeal and solemnity, to deadly speculations, 
which, invoking the name of God to aid their faculties for 
mischief, strike at all establishments, that the union of these 
States is formed to bear up against far greater shocks than, 
through all vicissitudes, it is ever likely to encounter. I 
will continue to cherish the belief, that, although like all 



296 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

other human institutions it may for a season be disturbed, 
or suffer momentary eclipse by the transit across its disk of 
some malignant planet, it possesses a recuperative force, a 
redeeming energy in the hearts of the people, that will 
soon restore it to its wonted calm, and give it back its ac- 
customed splendor. On such a subject I will discard all 
hysterical apprehensions. — I will deal in no sinister auguries 
— I will indulge in no hypochondriacal forebodings. I will 
look forward to the future with gay and cheerful hope ; and 
will make the prosjiect smile, in fancy at least, until over- 
whelming reality shall render it no longer possible. 

I have said thus much, Sir, in order that I may be un- 
derstood as meeting the constitutional question as a mere 
question of interpretation, and as disdaining to press into 
the service of my argument upon it prophetic fears of any 
sort, however they may be countenanced by an avowal, for- 
midable by reason of the high reputation of the individual 
by whom it has been hazarded, of sentiments the most de- 
structive, which, if not borrowed from, are identical with, 
the worst visions of the political philosophy of France when 
all the elements of discord and misrule were let loose upon 
that devoted nation. I mean " the infinite perfectibihty of 
man and his institutions," and the resolution of every thing 
into a state of nature. I have another motive, which, at 
the risk of being misconstrued, I will declare without reserve. 
With my convictions, and with my feelings, I never will 
consent to hold confederated America as bound together by 
a silken cord, which any instrument of mischief may sever, 
to the view of monarchical foreigners, who look with a jealous 
eye upon that glorious experiment which is now in progress 
amongst us in favor of republican freedom. Let them 
make such prophecies as they will, and nourish such feelings 
as they may, I will not contribute to the fulfilment of the 
former, nor minister to the gratification of the latter. 

Sir, it was but the other day that we were forbidden 



LIFE OF WILLIAM riNKNEY. 297 

(properly forbidden I am sure, for the prohibition came from 
you) to assume that there existed any intention to impose 
a prospective restraint on the domestic legislation of Mis- 
souri — a restraint to act upon it contemporaneously with its 
origin as a State, and to continue adhesive to it through all 
the stages of its political existence. We are now, however, 
permitted to know that it is determined by a sort of political 
surgery to amputate one of the limbs of its local sovereignty, 
and thus mangled and disparaged, and thus only, to receive 
it into the bosom of the constitution. It is now avowed 
that, while Maine is to be ushered into the Union with every 
possible demonstration of studious reverence on our part, 
and on hers with colors flying, and all the other graceful 
accompaniments of honorable triumph, this ill-conditioned 
upstart of the West, this obscure foundling of a wilderness 
that was but yesterday the hunting-ground of the savage, is 
to find her way into the American family as she can, with an 
humiliating badge of remediless inferiority patched ui)on her 
garments, with the mark of recent, qualified manumission 
upon her, or rather with a brand upon her forehead to tell 
the story of her territorial vassalage, and to perpetuate the 
memoiy of her evil proi^ensities. It is now avowed that, 
while the robust district of Maine is to be seated by the side 
of her truly respectable parent, co-ordinate in authority and 
honor, and is to be dandled into that power and dignity of 
which she does not stand in need, but which undoubtedly 
she deserves, the more infantine and feeble Missouri is to be 
repelled with harshness, and forbidden to come at all, unless 
with the iron collar of servitude about her neck, instead of 
the civic crown of republican freedom upon her brows, and 
is to be doomed for ever to leading strings, unless she will 
exchange those leading strings for shackles. 

I am told that you have the power to establish this odious 
and revolting distinction, and I am referred for the proofs 
of that power to various parts of the constitution, but prin- 



298 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 

cipally to that part of it wMch authorizes the admission of 
new States into the Union. I am myself of opinion that it 
is in that part only that the advocates for this restriction 
can, with any hope of success, apply for a license to impose 
it; and that the ejBforts which have been made to find it in 
other portions of that instrument, are too desperate to re 
quire to be encountered. I shall, however, examine those 
Other portions before I have done, lest it should be supposed 
by those who have relied upon them, that what I omit to 
answer I believe to be unanswerable. 

The clause of the constitution which relates to the ad- 
mission of new States is in these words : " The Congress 
may admit new States into this Union," &c., and the advo- 
cates for restriction maintain that the use of the word " may" 
imports discretion to admit or to reject ; and that in this 
discretion is wrapped up another — that of prescribing the 
terms and conditions of admission in case you are willing to 
admit : Cujus est dare ejus est disponere. I will not for the 
present inquire whether this involved discretion to dictate 
the terms of admission belongs to you or not. It is fit that 
I should first look to the nature and extent of it. 

I think I may assume that if such a power be any thing 
but nominal, it is much more than adequate to the present 
object; that it is a power of vast expansion, to which human 
sagacity can assign no reasonable limits ; that it is a capa- 
cious reservoir of authority, from which you may take, in all 
time to come, as occasion may serve, the means of oppression 
as well as of benefaction. I know that it professes at this 
moment to be the chosen instrument of protecting mercy, 
and would win upon us by its benignant smiles : but I know 
too it can frown, and play the tyrant, if it be so disposed. 
Notwithstanding the softness which it now assumes, and the 
care with which it conceals its giant proportions beneath the 
deceitful drapery of sentiment, when it next appears before 
you it may show itself with a sterner countenance and in 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 299 

more awful dimensions. It is, to speak the truth, Sir, a 
power of colossal size — if indeed it be not an abuse of lan- 
guage to call it by the gentle name of a poiuer. Sir, it is a 
wilderness of powers, of which fancy in her happiest mood is 
unable to perceive the far-distant and shadowy boundary. 
Armed ^\\i\\ such a power, with religion in one hand and 
philanthropy in the other, and followed with a goodly train 
of public and private virtues, you may achieve more con- 
quests over sovereignties not your own than falls to the com- 
mon lot of even uncommon ambition. By the aid of such a 
power, skilfully employed, you may " bridge your way" over 
the Hellespont that separates State legislation from that of 
Congress ; and you may do so for pretty much the same 
purpose Avith which Xerxes once bridged his way across the 
Hellespont, that separates Asia from Europe. He did so, in 
the language of Milton, " the Hberties of Greece to yoke." 
You may do so for the analogous purpose of subjugating and 
reducing the sovereignties of States, as your taste or conve- 
nience may suggest, and fashioning them to your imperial 
will. There are those in this house who appear to think, 
and I doubt not sincerely, that the particular restraint now 
under consideration is wise, and benevolent, and good : wise 
as respects the Union — good as respects Missouri — benevo- 
lent as respects the unhappy victims whom, with a novel 
kindness, it would incarcerate in the South, and bless by de- 
cay and extirpation. Let aU such beware, lest in their desire 
for the effect which they believe the restriction will produce, 
they are too easily satisfied that they have the right to im- 
pose it. The moral beauty of the present purpose, or even 
its pohtical recommendations (whatever they may be), can 
do nothing for a power like this, which claims to prescribe 
conditions ad libitum, and to be competent to this purpose, 
because it is competent to all. This restriction, if it be not 
smothered in its birth, will be but a small part of the pro- 
geny of that prolific power. It teems with a mighty brood, 



300 LIFE OF WILLIAM TINKNEY. 

of which this may be entitled to the distinction of comeliness 
as well as of primogeniture. The rest may want the boasted 
loveliness of their predecessor, and be even uglier than 
" Lapland witches." 

Perhaps, Sir, you will permit me to remind you that it 
is almost always in company with those considerations that 
interest the heart in some way or other, that encroachment 
steals into the world. A bad purpose throws no veil Over 
the licenses of power. It leaves them to be seen as they are. 
It affords them no protection from the inquiring eye of 
jealousy. The danger is when a tremendous discretion hke 
the present is attempted to be assumed, as on this occasion, 
in the names of pity, of religion, of national honor and 
national prosperity ; when encroachment tricks itself out in 
the robes of piety, or humanity, or addresses itself to pride 
of country, with all its kindred passions and motives. It is 
then that the guardians of the constitution are apt to slum- 
ber on their watch, or, if awake, to mistake for lawful rale 
some pernicious arrogation of power. 

I would not discourage authorized legislation upon those 
kindly, generous, and noble feehngs which Providence has 
given to us for the best of purposes : but when power to act 
is under discussion, I will not look to the end in view, lest I 
should become indifferent to the lawfulness of the means. 
Let us discard from this high constitutional question, aU 
those extrinsic considerations which have been forced into 
its discussion. Let us endeavor to approach it with a 
philosophic impartiality of temper — with a sincere desire to 
ascertain the boundaries of our authority, and a deter- 
mination to keep our wishes in subjection to om' allegiance 
to the constitution. 

Slavery, we are told in many a pamphlet, memorial, and 
speech, with which the press has lately groaned, is a foul 
blot upon our otherwise immaculate reputation. Let this 
be conceded-^— yet you are no nearer than before to the con- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 301 

elusion that you possess power which may deal with othei 
subjects as effectually as with this. Slavery, we are fm-ther 
told, with some pomp of metaphor, is a canker at the root 
of all that is excellent in this republican empire, a pestilent 
disease that is snatching the youtliful bloom from its cheek, 
prostrating its honor and withering its strength. Be it so — 
yet if you have power to medicine to it in the way proposed, 
and in virtue of the diploma which you claim, you have also 
power in the distribution of your political alexipharmics to 
present the deadliest drugs to every territory that would be- 
come a State, and bid it drink or remain a colony for ever. 
Slavery, we are also told, is now " rolling onward with a rapid 
tide towards the boundless regions of the West," threatening 
to doom them to steriHty and sorrow, unless some potent 
voice can say to it— thus far shalt thou go and no farther. 
Slavery engenders pride and indolence in him who com- 
mands, and inflicts intellectual and moral degradation on 
him who serves. Slavery, in fine, is unchristian and abom- 
inable. Sir, I shall not stop to deny that slavery is all this 
and more ; but I shall not think myself the less authorized 
to deny that it is for you to stay the course of this dark tor- 
rent, by opposing to it a mound raised up by the labors of 
this portentous discretion on the domain of others — a mound 
which you cannot erect but through the instrumentaUty of a 
trespass of no ordinary kind— not the comparatively inno- 
cent trespass that beats down a few blades of grass which 
the first kind sun or the next refreshing shower may cause 
to spring again, but that which levels with the ground the 
lordliest trees of the forest, and claims immortality for tho 
destruction which it inflicts. 

I shall not, I am sure, be told that I exaggerate this 
power. It has been admitted here, and elsewhere, that I 
do not. But I want no such concession. It is manifest, 
that as a discretionary power it is every thing or nothing— 
that its head is in the clouds, or that it is a mere figment of 



302 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

enthiisiastic speculation — that it has no existence, or that it 
is an alarming vortex ready to swallow up aU such portions 
of the sovereignty of an infant State, as you may think fit 
to cast into it as preparatory to the introduction into the 
Union of the miserable residue. No man can contradict me 
when I say, that if you have this power, you may squeeze 
down a new-born sovereign State to the size of a pigmy, and 
then taking it between finger and thumb, stick it into some 
niche of the Union, and still continue by way of mockery to 
call it a State in the sense of the constitution. You may 
waste it to a shadow, and then introduce it into the society 
of flesh and blood, an object of scorn and derision. You 
may sweat and reduce it to a thing of skin and bone, and 
then place the ominous skeleton beside the ruddy and health- 
ful members of the Union, that it may have leisure to mourn 
the lamentable difference between itself and its companions, 
to brood over its disastrous promotion, and to seek in justifi- 
able discontent, an opportunity for separation, and insurrec- 
tion, and rebellion. What may you not do by dexterity and 
perseverance with this terrific power ? You may give to a 
new State, in the form of terms which it cannot refuse, (as 
I shall show you hereafter,) a statute book of a thousand vol- 
umes — providing not for ordinary cases only, but even for 
possibilities ; you may lay the yoke, no matter whether light 
or heavy, upon the necks of the latest posterity ; you may 
send this searching power into every hamlet for centuries to 
come, by laws enacted in the spirit of prophecy, and regulat- 
ing all those dear relations of domestic concern, which be- 
long to local legislation, and which even local legislation 
touches with a delicate and sparing hand. This is the first 
inroad. But will it be the last ? This provision is but a 
pioneer for others of a more desolating aspect. It is the fatal 
bridge of which MUton speaks, and when once firmly built, 
what shall hinder you to pass it when you please, for the 
purpose of plundering power after power at the expense of 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 303 

new States, as you will still continue to call them, and rais- 
ing up prospective codes, irrevocable and immortal, which 
shall leave to those States the empty shadows of domestic 
sovereignty, and convert them into petty pageants, in them- 
selves contemptible, but rendered infinitely more so by the 
contrast of their humble faculties, with the proud and ad- 
mitted pretensions of those who, having doomed them to the 
inferiority of vassals, have condescended to take them into 
their society and under their protection ? 

I shall be told, perhaps, that you can have no tempta- 
tion to do all, or any part of this, and, moreover, that you 
can do nothing of yourselves, or, in other w'ords, without the 
concurrence of the new State. The last of these sugges- 
tions I shall examine by and by. To the first I answer, that 
it is not incumbent upon me to prove that this discretion 
will be abused. It is enough for me to prove the vastness of 
the power as an inducement to make us pause upon it, and 
to inquire with attention, whether there is any apartment in 
the constitution large enough to give it entertainment. It 
is more than enough for me to show that vast as is this power, 
it is with reference to mere territories an irresponsible power. 
Power is irresponsible when it acts upon those who are de- 
fenceless against it, who cannot check it, or contribute to check 
it, in its exercise, who can resist it only by force. The terri- 
tory of Missouri has no check upon this power. It has no share 
in the government of the Union. In this body it has no repre- 
sentative. In the other House it has, by courtesy, an agent, 
who may remonstrate, but cannot vote. That such an irre- 
sponsible power is not likely to be abused, who will undertake 
to assert ? If it is not, "Experience is a cheat, and fact a bar, " 
The power which England claimed over the colonies, was such 
a })ower, and it was abused — and hence the revolution. Such 
a power is always perifous to those who wield it, as well as 
to those on whom it is exerted. Oppression is but another 
name for irresponsible power, if history is to be trusted. 



304 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

The free spirit of our constitution and of our people, is 
no assurance against the propension of unbridled power to 
abuse, when it acts upon colonial dependents rather than 
upon ourselves. Free States, as well as despots, have op- 
pressed those whom they were bound to foster — and it is the 
nature of man that it should be so. The love of power, and 
the desire to display it when it can be done with impunity, 
is inherent in the human heart. Turn it out at the door, 
and it will in again at the window. Power is displayed in 
its fullest measure, and with a captivating dignity, by re- 
straints and conditions. The pi^uritas leges ferendi is an 
universal disease ; ana conditions are laws as far as they go. 
The vanity of human wisdom, and the presumption of hu- 
man reason, are proverbial. This vanity and this presump- 
tion, are often neither reasonable nor wise. Humanity, too, 
sometimes plays fantastic tricks with power. Time, moreover, 
is fruitful in temptations to convert discretionary power to 
all sorts of purposes. 

Time, that withers the strength of man, and "strews 
around him like autumnal leaves, the ruins of his proudest 
monuments," produces great vicissitudes in modes of think- 
ing and feeling. It brings along with it, in its progress, 
new circumstances — new combinations and modifications of 
the old — generating new views, motives, and caprices — new 
fanaticisms of endless variety — in short, new every thuig. 
We ourselves are always changing — and what to-day we 
have but a small desire to attempt, to-morrow becomes the 
object of our passionate aspirations. 

There is such a thing as enthusiasm, moral, rehgious, or 
political, or a compound of all three ; — and it is wonderful 
what it will attempt, and from what imperceptible beginnings 
it sometimes rises into a mighty agent. Rising from gome 
obscure or unknown som'ce, it fifst shows itself a petty 
rivulet, which scarcely murmurs over the pebbles that ob- 
struct its way — then it swells into a fierce torrent, bearing 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 305 

all before it — and then again, like some mountain stream, 
which occasional rains have precipitated ujjou the valley, it 
sinks once more into a rivulet, and finally leaves its channel 
dry. Such a thing has happened. I do not say that it is 
now happening. It would not become me to say so. But if 
it should occur, woe to the unlucky territory that should be 
struggling to make its ■way into the Union at the moment 
when the opposing inundation was at its height, and at the 
same instant, this wide Mediterranean of discretionary pow- 
ers, which it seems is ours, should open up all its sluices, and 
with a consentaneous rush, mingle ^vith the turbid waters of 
the others. ' 

" New States may be admitted by the Congress into this 
Union." It is objected that the word '" may" imports power, 
not obligation — a right to decide — a discretion to grant or 
refuse. 

To this it might be answered^ that poiver is duty on 
many occasions. But let it be conceded that it is discre- 
tionary. What consequence follows ? A power to refuse, 
in a case like this, does not necessarily involve a power to 
exact terms. You must look to the result, which is the de- 
clared object of the power. Whether you will arrive at it, 
or not, may depend on your will ; but you cannot compro- 
mise with the result intended and professed. 

What then is the professed* result ? To admit a State 
into this Union. 

What is that Union ? A confederation of States, equal 
in sovereignty — capable of every thing wliich the constitu- 
tion does not forbid, or authorize Congress to forbid. It is 
an equal Union, between parties equally sovereign. They 
were sovereign, independently of the Union. The object of 
the Union was common protection for tTie exercise of already 
existing sovereignty. The parties gave up a portion of that 
sovereignty to insure the remainder. As far as they gave it 
20 



806 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

up, by the common compact, they have ceased to be sove- 
reign. The Union provides the means of defending the resi- 
due : and it is into that Union that a new State is to come. 
By acceding to it, the new State is pkced on the same foot- 
ing with the original States, It accedes for the same 
purpose, i. e., protection for its unsurrendered sovereignty. 
If it comes in shorn of its beams — crippled and disparaged 
beyond the original States, it is not into the original Union 
that it comes. For it is a different sort of Union. The 
first was Union inter pares : This is a Union between 
disparates — between giants and a dwarf — ^between power and 
feebleness — between full proportioned sovereignties, and a 
miserable image of power — a thing which that very Union 
has shrunk and shrivelled from its just size, instead of pre- 
servino; it in its true dimensions. 

It is into " this Union," i. e., the Union of the Fede- 
ral Constitution, that you are to admit, or refuse to admit. 
You can admit into no other. You cannot make the Union, 
as to the new State, what it is not as to the old ; for then it 
is not this Union that you open for the entrance of a new 
party. If you make it enter into a new and additional com- 
pact, is it any longer the same Union ? 

We are told that admitting a State into the Union is 
a compact. Yes — ^but what sort of a compact ? A compact 
that it shall be a member of the Union, as the constitution 
has made it. You cannot irew fashion it. You may make 
a compact to admit, but when admitted, the original com- 
pact prevails. The Union is a compact, with a provision of 
political power and agents for the accomplishment of its ob- 
jects. Vary that compact as to a new State — give new 
energy to that political power, so as to make it act with 
more force upon a new State than upon the old — make the 
will of those agents more effectually the arbiter of the fate 
of a new State than of the old, and it may be confidently 
said that the new State has not entered into this Union, but 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 307 

into another Union. How far the Union has been varied is 
another question. But that it has been varied is clear. 

If I am told, that by the biU relative to Missouri, you do 
not legislate upon a new State — I answer that you do ; and 
I answer further, that it is immaterial whether you do or not. 
But it is ujion Missouri, as a State, that your terms and 
conditions are to act. Until Missouri is a State, the terms 
and conditions are nothing. You legislate in the shajjc of 
terms and conditions, prospectively ; and you so legislate 
upon it, that when it comes into the Union it is to be bound 
by a contract degrading and diminishing its sovereignty, 
and is to be strijiped of rights which the original parties to 
the Union did not consent to abandon, and which that 
Union (so far as depends upon it) takes under its protection 
and guarantee. 

Is the right to hold slaves a right which Massachusetts 
enjoys ? If it is, Massachusetts is under this Union in a dif- 
ferent character from Missouri. The compact of Union for 
it, is different from the same compact of Union for Missouri. 
The power of Congress is different — every thing which de- 
pends upon the Union is, in that respect, different. 

But it is immaterial whether you legislate for Missouri as 
a State or not. The effect of your legislation is to bring it 
into the Union with a portion of its sovereignty taken away. 

But it is a State which you are to admit. What is a 
State in the sense of the constitution ? It is not a State in 
the general — but a State as you find it in the constitution. 
A State, generally, is a body poHtic or independent political 
society of men. But the State which you are to admit must 
be more or less than this political entity. What must it be ? 
Ask the constitution. It shows what it means by a State 
by reference to the parties to it. It must be such a State 
as Massachusetts, Virginia, and the other members of the 
American confederacy — a State with full sovereignty, except 
as the constitution restricts it. 



308 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

It is said that the word may ncessarily implies the right 
of prescribing the terms of admission. Those who maintain 
this are aware that there are no express words (such di^upon 
such terms and conditions as Congress shall think Jit), words 
which it was natural to expect to find in the constitution, if 
the eifect contended for were meant. They put it, there- 
fore, on the word may, and on that alone. 

Give to that word all the force you please — what does it 
import ? That Congress is not hound to admit a new State 
into this Union. Be it so for argument's sake. Does it 
follow that when you consent to admit into this Union a new 
State, you can make it less in sovereign power than the ori- 
ginal parties to that Union — that you can make the Union 
as to it what it is not as to them — that you can fashion it to 
your liking by compelling it to purchase admission into an 
Union by sacrificing a portion of that power which it is the 
sole purpose of the Union to maintain in all the plenitude 
which the Union itself does not impair ? Does it follow, 
that you can force upon it an additional compact not found 
in the compact of Union .^ that you can make it come into 
the Union less a State, in regard to sovereign power, than its 
fellows in that Union? that you can cripple its legislative 
competency (beyond the constitution which is the pact of 
Union, to which you make it a party as if it had been origi- 
nally a party to it), by what you choose to call a condition, 
but which, whatever it may be called, brings the new gov- 
ernment into the Union under new obligations to it, and 
with disparaged power to be protected by it ? 

In a word, the whole amount of the argument on the 
other side, is — that you may refuse to admit a new State, 
and that therefore, if you admit, you may prescrijbe the 
terms. 

The answer to that argument is — that even if you can re- 
fuse, you can prescribe no terms which are inconsistent with 
the act you are to do. You can prescribe no condition 



LIFE OF "WILLIAM PINKNEY. 309 

which, if carried into effect, would make the new State 
less a sovereign State than, under the Union as it stands, it 
would be. You can prescribe no terms which will make the 
compact of Union between it and the original States essen- 
tially different from that compact among the original States. 
You may admit, or refuse to admit : but if you admit, you 
must admit a State in the sense of the constitution — a State 
with all such sovereignty as belongs to the original parties : 
and it must be into this Union that you are to admit it, not 
into a Union of your own dictating, formed out of the exist- 
ing Union by qualifications and new compacts, altering its 
character and effect, and making it fall short of its protect- 
ing energy in reference to the new State, whilst it acquires 
an energy of another sort — the energy of restraint and de- 
struction, 

I have thus endeavored to show, that even if you have a 
discretion to refuse to admit — you have no discretion, if you 
are willing to admit, to insist upon any terms that impair 
the sovereignty of the admitted State as it would otherwise 
stand in the Union by the constitution which receives it into 
its bosom. To admit or not, is for you to decide. Admis- 
sion once conceded, it follows as a corollary that you must 
take the new State as an equal companion with its fellows — 
that you cannot recast or new model the Union j9ro hac vice 
— but that you must receive it into the actual Union, and 
recognize it as a parcener in the common inheritance, with- 
out any other shackles than the rest have, by the constitu- 
tion, submitted to bear — without any other extinction of 
power than is the work of the constitution acting indiffer- 
ently upon all, 

I may be told, perhaps, that the restriction, in this case, 
is the act of Missouri itself — that your law is nothing with- 
out its consent, and derives its efficacy from that alone, 

I shall have a more suitable occasion to speak on this 
topic hereafter, when I come to consider the treaty which 



310 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

ceded Louisiana to the United States. But I will say a few 
words upon it now, of a more general application than it will, 
in that branch of the argument, be necessary to use. 

A territory cannot surrender to Congress by anticipa- 
tion, the whole, or a part, of the sovereign power^ which, 
by the constitution of the Union, will belong to it when it 
becomes a State and a member of the Union. Its consent 
is, therefore, nothing. It is in no situation to make this sur- 
render. It is under the government of Congress ; if it can 
barter away a part of its sovereignty, by anticipation, it can 
do so as to the whole. For where will you stop ? If it does 
not cease to be a State, in the sense of the constitution, with 
only a certain portion of sovereign power, what other smaller 
portion will have that effect ? If you depart from the 
standard of the constitution, i. e., the quantity of domestic 
sovereignty left in the first contracting States, and secured 
by the original compact of Union, where will you get ano- 
ther standard .^ Consent is no standard,— for consent may 
be gained to a surrender of all. 

No State or Territory, in order to become a State, can 
alienate or surrender any portion of its sovereignty to the 
Union, or to a sister State, or to a foreign nation. It is un- 
der an incapacity to disqualify itself for all the purposes of 
government left to it in the constitution, by stripping itself 
of attributes which arise from the natural equality of States, 
and which the constitution recognizes, not only because it 
does not deny them, but presumes them to remain as they 
exist by the law of nature and nations. Inequality in the 
sovereignty of states is unnatural, and repugnant to all the 
principles of that law. Hence we find it laid down by the 
text writers on public law, that " Nature has established a 
perfect equality of rights between independent nations " — 
and that " Whatever the quality of a free sovereign nation 
gives to one, it gives to another." * The constitution of the 

* Vattel, Droit des Gens, liv. 2, c. 3. s. 36. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 311 

United States proceeds upon the truth of this doctrine. It 
takes the States as it finds them, free and sovereign alike 
BY NATURE. It rcceivcs from them portions of their power 
for the general good, and provides for the exercise of it by 
organized political bodies. It diminishes the individual 
sovereignty of each, and transfers, what it subtracts, to the 
government which it creates : it takes from all alike, and 
leaves them relatively to each other equal in sovereign power. 
The honorable gentleman from New- York has put the 
constitutional argument altogether upon the clause relative 
to admission of new States into the Union, He does not 
pretend that you can find the power to restrain, in any ex- 
tent, elsewhere. It follows that it is not a jDarticular power 
to impose this restriction, but a power to impose restrictions 
ad libitum. It is competent to this, because it is competent 
to every thing. But he denies that there can be any power 
in man to hold in slavery liis fellow-creature, and argues, 
therefore, that the prohibition is no restraint at all, since it 
does not interfere with the sovereign powers of Missouri. 

One of the most signal errors with which the argument 
on the other side has abounded, is this of considering the pro- 
posed restriction as if levelled at the introduction or estab- 
lisliment of slavery. And hence the vehement declamation, 
which, among other things, has informed us that slavery orig- 
inated in fraud or violence. 

The truth is, that the restriction has no relation, real or 
pretended, to the right of making slaves of those ivho are free, 
or of introducing slavery where it does not already exist. It 
applies to those who are admitted to be already slaves, and 
who (with their posterity) would continue to be slaves if they 
should remain where they are at present ; and to a place 
where slavery already exists by the local law. Their civil 
condition will not be altered by their removal from Virginia, 
or Carolina, to Missouri. They will not be more slaves than 



312 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

they now are. Their abode, indeed, will be diflferent, but 
their bondage the same. Their numbers may possibly be 
augmented by the diffusion, and I think they will. But this 
can only happen because their hardships will be mitigated, 
and their comforts increased. The checks to population, 
which exist in the older States will be diminished. The 
restriction, therefore, does not prevent the establishment of 
slavery, either with reference to persons or place ; but simply 
inhibits the removal from place to place (the law in each 
being the same) of a slave, or make his emancipation the 
consequence of that removal. It acts professedly merely on 
slavery as it exists, and thus acting restrains its present law- 
ful effects. That slavery, like many other human institu- 
tions, originated in fraud or violence, may be conceded : but, 
however it originated, it is established among us, and no 
man seeks a further establishment of it by new importations 
of freemen to be converted into slaves. On the contrary, all 
are anxious to mitigate its evils by all the means within the 
reach of the appropriate authority, the domestic legislatures 
of the different States. 

It can be nothing to the purpose of this argument, there- 
fore, as the gentlemen themselves have shaped it, to inquire 
what was the origin of slavery. What is it now, and who 
are they that endeavor to innovate upon what it now is (the 
advocates of this restriction who desire change by unconsti- 
tutional means, or its opponents who desire to leave the 
whole matter to local regulation), are the only questions 
worthy of attention. 

Sir, if we too closely look to the rise and progress of long 
sanctioned establishments and unquestioned rights, we may 
discover other subjects than that of slavery, with which fraud 
and violence may claim a fearful connection, and over which 
it may be our interest to throw the mantle of oblivion. What 
was the settlement of our ancestors in this country but an 
invasion of the rights of the barbarians who inhabited it ?, 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 313 

That settlement, with slight exceptions, was effected by the 
slaughter of those who did no more than defend their native 
land against the intruders of Europe, or by unequal compacts 
and purchases, in which feebleness and ignorance had to deal 
with power and cunning. The savages who once built their 
huts where this proud Capitol, rising from its recent ashes, 
exemplifies the sovereignty of the American people, were 
swept away by the injustice of our tathers, and their domain 
usurped by force, or obtained by artifices yet more criminal. 
Our continent was full of those aboriginal inhabitants. 
Where are they or their descendants ? Eitlicr " with years 
beyond the flood," or driven back by the swelling tide of our 
population from the borders of the Atlantic to the deserts of 
the West, You follow still the miserable remnants, and 
make contracts with them that seal their ruin. You pur- 
chase their lands, of which they know not the value, in order 
that you may sell them to advantage, increase your treasure, 
and enlarge your emj)ire. Yet further — you pursue as they 
retire ; and they must continue to retire, until the Pacific 
shall stay their retreat, and compel them to pass away as 
a dream. Will you recur to those scenes of various iniquity 
for any other purpose than to regret and lament them ? 
Will you pry into them, with a view to shake and impair 
your rights of property and dominion ? 

But the broad denial of the sovereign right of Missouri, 
if it shall become a sovereign State, to recognize slavery by 
its laws, is rested upon a variety of grounds, all of which I 
will examine. 

It is an extraordinary fact, that they who urge this denial 
with such ardent zeal, stop short of it in their conduct. 
There are now slaves in Missouri whom they do not insist 
upon delivering from their chains. Yet if it is incompetent 
to sovereign power to continue slavery in Missouri, in respect 
of slaves who may yet be carried thither, show me the power 
that can continue it in respect of slaves who are there already. 



314 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

Missouri is out of the old limits of the Union, and beyond 
those limits, it is said, we can give no countenance to slavery, 
if we can countenance or tolerate it any where. It is plain, 
that there can be no slaves beyond the Mississippi at this 
moment but in virtue of some power to make or keep them 
so. What sort of power was it that has made or kept them 
so ? Sovereign power it could not be, according to the 
honorable gentlemen from Pennsylvania and New Hamp- 
shire : * and if sovereign power is unequal to such a purpose, 
less than sovereign power is yet more unequal to it. The 
laws of Spain and France could do nothing — the laws of the 
territorial government of Missouri could do nothing tov?^ards 
such a result, if it be a result which no laws, in other words, 
no sovereignty, could accompHsh. The treaty of 1803 could 
do no more, in this view, than the laws of France, or Spain, 
or the territorial government of Missouri. A treaty is an act 
of sovereign power, taking the shape of a compact between the 
parties to it ; and that which sovereign power cannot reach at 
all, it cannot reach by a treaty. Those who are now held in 
bondage, therefore, in Missouri, and their issue, are entitled to 
be free, if there be any truth in the doctrine of the honorable 
gentlemen ; and if the proposed restriction leaves all such in 
slavery, it thus discredits the very foundation on which it re- 
poses. To be inconsistent is the fate of false principles — but 
this inconsistency is the more to be remarked, since it cannot 
be referred to mere considerations of policy, without admit- 
ting that such considerations may be preferred (without a 
crime) to what is deemed a paramount and indispensable 
duty. 

It is here, too, that I must be permitted to observe, that 
the honorable gentlemen have taken great pains to show 
that this restriction is a mere work of supererogation by the 
principal argument on which they rest the proof of its pro- 
priety. Missouri, it is said, can have no power to do what 

* Mr. Roberts, Mr. Lowrie, and Mr. Morril. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 315 

the restriction would prevent. It would be void, therefore, 
without the restriction. Why then, I ask, is the restriction 
insisted upon ? Restraint implies that there is something 
to be restrained : But the gentlemen justify the restraint 
by showing that there is nothing upon which it can operate ! 
They demonstrate the wisdom and necessity of restraint, by 
demonstrating that with or without restraint, the subject is 
in the same predicament. This is to combat with a man 
of straw, and to put fetters ujjon a shadow. 

The gentlemen must, therefore, abandon either their doc- 
trine or their restriction, their argument or their object, for 
they are directly in conflict, and reciprocally destroy each other. 
It is evident, that they will not abandon their object, and of 
course, I must believe, that they hold their argument in as 
little real estimation as I myself do. The gentlemen can 
scarcely be sincere believers in their own j^'inciijle. They 
have apprehensions, which they endeavor to conceal, that 
Missouri, as a State, will have power to continue slavery 
within its limits ; and if they will not be offended, I will 
venture to compare them, in this particular, with the dueHst 
in Sheridan's comedy of the Rivals, who affecting to have 
no fear whatever of his adversary, is, nevertheless, careful to 
admonish Sir Lucius to hold him fast. 

Let us take it for granted, however, that they are in 
earnest in then* doctrine, and that it is very necessary to im- 
pose what they prove to be an unnecessary restraint : how do 
they support that doctrine ? 

The honorable gentleman on the other side* has told us, 
as a proof of his great position (that man cannot enslave his 
fellow man, in which is implied that all laws upholding slave- 
ry are absolute nullities), that the nations of antiquity as 
well as of modern times have concui-red in laying down that 
position as incontrovertible. 

*Mr. King. 



316 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

He refers us in the first place to tlie Koman law, in 
which, he finds it laid down as a maxim : Jure natw^ali om- 
nes homines ah initio liheri nascehantur. From the manner 
in which this maxim was pressed upon us, it would not read- 
ily have been conjectured that the honorable gentleman who 
used it had borrowed it from a slave-holding empire, and stiU 
less from a book of the Institutes of Justinian, which treats 
of slavery, and justifies, and regulates it. Had he given us 
the context, we should have had the modifications of which 
the abstract doctrine was in the judgment of the Roman law 
susceptible. We should have had an explanation of the 
competency of that law, to convert, whether justly or un- 
justly, freedom into servitude, and to maintain the right of 
a master to the service and obedience of his slave. 

The honorable gentleman might also have gone to Greece 
for a similar maxim and a similar commentary, speculative 
and practical. 

He next refers us to Magna Charta. I am somewhat famil- 
iar with Magna Charta, and I am confident that it contains no 
such maxim as the honorable gentleman thinks he has discov- 
ered in it. The great charter was extorted from John, and 
his feeble son and successor, by haughty slave-holding barons, 
who thought only of themselves and the commons of Eng- 
land (then inconsiderable), whom they wished to enlist in 
their efi'orts against the crown. There is not in it a single 
word which condemns civil slavery. Freenlen only are the ob- 
jects of its protecting care, "Nullus liher homo," is its 
phraseology. The serfs, who were chained to the soil — the 
villeins regardant and in gross, were left as it found them. 
All England was then full of slaves, whose posterity would 
by law remain slaves as with us, except only that the issue 
followed the condition of the father instead of the mother. 
The rule was " Partus sequitur patrem " — a rule more favor- 
able, undoubtedly, from the very precariousness of its aj)pli- 
cation, to the gradual extinction of slavery, than ours, which 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 317 

has been drawn from the Roman law, and is of sure and un- 
avoidable effect. 

Still less has the Petition of IlirjJit, presented to Charles 
I., by the Long Parliament, to do with the subject of civil 
slavery. It looked merely, as Magna Charta had not done 
before it, to the freedom of England — and sought only to 
protect them against royal prerogative and the encroaching 
spirit of the Stewarts. 

As to the Bill of Bights, enacted by the Convention Par- 
liament of 1688, it is almost a duplicate of the Petition of 
Right, and arose out of the recollection of that political ty- 
ranny from Avhich the nation had just escaped, and the re- 
cun'encd of which it was intended to prevent. It contains 
no abstract principles. It deals only with practical checks 
upon the power of the monarch, and in safeguards for insti- 
tutions essential to the preservation of the public liberty. 
That it was not designed to anathematize civil slavery may 
be taken for granted, since at that epoch and long afterwards 
the English government inundated its foreign plantations 
with slaves, and supjjlied other nations with them as mer- 
chandise, under the sanction of solemn treaties negotiated 
for that purpose. And here I cannot forbear to remark that 
we owe it to that same government, when it stood towards 
us in the relation of parent to child, that involuntary servi- 
tude exists in our land, and that we are now deliberating 
whether the prerogative of correcting its evils belongs to the 
national or the State governments. In the early periods of 
our colonial history every thing was done by the mother 
country to encourage the importation of slaves into North 
America, and the measures wliich were adopted by the Colo- 
nial Assemblies to prohibit it, were uniformly negatived by 
the crown. It is not therefore our fault, nor the fault of our 
ancestors, that this calamity has been entailed upon us ; and 
notwithstanding the ostentation with which the loitering ab- 
olition of the slave trade by the British Parliament has been 



318 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

vaunted, the principal consideration which at last reconciled 
it to that measure was, that by suitable care, the slave pop- 
ulation in their West India islands (already fully stocked) 
might be kept uj? and even increased without the aid of im- 
portation. In a word, it was cold calculations of interest, 
and not the suggestions of humanity, or a respect for the 
philanthroj)ic principles of Mr. Wilberforce, which produced 
their tardy abandonment of that abominable traffic. 

Of the Declaration of our Independence, which has also 
been quoted in support of the perilous doctrines now urged 
uj)on us, I need not now speak at large. I have shown on a 
former occasion how idle it is to rely upon that instrument 
for such a purpose, and will not fatigue you by mere repe- 
tition. The self-evident truths announced in the Declaration 
of Independence are not truths at all, if taken literally ; 
and the practical conclusions contained in the same passage 
of that Declaration prove that they were never designed to 
be so received. 

The Articles of Confederation contain nothing on the 
subject ; whilst the actual constitution recognizes the legal 
existence of slavery by various j)rovisions. The power of 
prohibiting the slave trade is involved in that of regulating 
commerce, but this is coupled with an express inhibition to 
the exercise of it for twenty years. How then can that con- 
stitution which expressly permits the importation of slaves, 
authorize the national government to set on foot a crusade 
against slavery ? 

The clause respecting fugitive slaves is affirmative and 
active in its effects. It is a direct sanction and positive pro- 
tection of the right of the master to the services of his slave 
as derived under the local laws of the State. The phrase- 
ology in which it is wrapped up still leaves the intention clear, 
and the words '' persons held to service or labor in one State 
under the laws thereof," have always been interpreted to ex- 
tend to the case of slaves, in the various acts of Congress 



LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNEY. 319 

which have been passed to give efl&cacy to the provision, and 
in the judicial application of those laws. So also in the clause 
prescribing the ratio of representation — the phrase, " three- 
fifths of all other persons," is ecjuivalent to slaves, or it 
means nothing. And yet we are told that those who are act- 
ing under a constitution which sanctions the existence of 
slavery in those States which choose to tolerate it, are at lib- 
erty to hold that no law can sanction its existence ! 

It is idle to make the rightfulness of an act the measure 
of sovereign power. The distinction between sovereign pow- 
er and the moral right to exercise it, has always been recog- 
nized. All political power may be abused, but is it to stop 
where abuse may begin ? The power of declaring war is a 
power of vast capacity for mischief, and capable of inflicting 
the most wide-spread desolation. But it is given to Con- 
gress without stint and without measure. Is a citizen, or 
are the courts of justice to inquire whether that, or any other 
law, is just, before they obey or execute it ? And are there 
any degrees of injustice which will withdraw from sovereign 
power the capacity of making a given law ? 

But sovereignty is said to be deputed power. Deputed 
■ — by whom ? By the peojile, because the power is theirs. 
And if it be theirs, does not the restriction take it away ? 
Examine the constitution of the Union, and it will be seen 
that i\\Q people of the States are regarded as well as the 
States themselves. The constitution was made by the peo- 
ple, and ratified by the people. 

Is it fit, then, to hold that all the sovereignty of a State 
is in the government of the State ? So much is there as 
the people grant : and the people can take it away, or give 
more, or new model what they have already granted. It is 
this right which the proposed restriction takes from Missouri. 
You give them an immortal constitution, depending on your 
will, not on theirs. The people and tlieir posterity are to be 
bound for ever by this restriction ; and upon the same priu- 



320 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

ciple any other restriction may be imposed. Where then is 
their power to change the constitution, and to devolve new 
sovereignty upon the State government ? You limit their 
sovereign capacity to do it ; and when you talk of a State, 
you mean the people, as well as the government. The people 
are the source of all power — you dry up that source. They 
are the reservoir — you take out of it what suits you. 

It is said that this government is a government of depu- 
ted powers. So is every government — and what power is 
not deputed remains. But the people of the United States 
can give it more if they please, as the people of each State 
can do in respect to its own government. And here it is 
well to remember, that this is a government of enumerated, 
as well as deputed powers ; and to examine the clause as to 
the admission of new States, with that principle in view. 
Now assume that it is a part of the sovereign power of the 
people of Missouri to continue slavery, and to devolve that 
power upon its government — and then to take it away — and 
then to give it again. The government is their creature — 
the means of exercising their sovereignty, and they can vary 
those means at their pleasure. Independently of the Union, 
their power would be unhmited. By coming into the 
Union, they part with some of it, and are thus less sov- 
ereign. 

Let us then see whether they part with this power. 

If they have parted with this portion of sovereign power, 
it must be under that clause of the national constitution 
which gives to Congress " power to admit new States into 
this Union." And it is said, that this necessarily implies 
the authority of ^prescribing the conditions, upon which such 
new States shall be admitted. This has been put into the 
form of a syllogism which is thus stated : 

Major. Every universal proposition includes all the 
means, manner, and terms of the act to which it relates. 

Minor. But this is a universal proposition. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 321 

Conclusion. Therefore, the means, manner, and terms, 
are involved in it. 

But this syllogism is fallacious, and any thing else may 
be proved by it, by assuming one of its members which 
involves the conclusion. The minor is a mere postulate. 

Take it in this way : 

Major. None but a universal proposition includes in 
itself the terms and conditions of the act to be done. 

Minor. But this is not such a universal proposition. 

Conclusion. Therefore, it does not contain in itself the 
terms and conditions of the act. 

In both cases the minor is a gratuitous postulate. 

But I deny that a universal proposition as to a speci^c 
act, involves the terms and conditions of that act, so as to 
vary it and substitute another and a different act in its 
place. The proposition contained in the clause is universal 
in one sense only. It is pcaiiciilar in another. It is uni- 
versal as to the power to admit or refuse. It is particular 
as to the being or thing to be admitted, and the compact by 
which it is to be admitted. The sophistry consists in 
extending the universal part of the j)roposition in such a 
manner as to make out of it another universal proposition. 
It consists in confounding the right to produce or to refiise 
to produce a certain defined effect, with a right to produce a 
different effect by refusing otherwise to produce any effect at 
all. It makes the actual right the instrument of obtaining 
another right with which the actual right is incompatible. 
It makes, in a word, lawful power the instrument of unlaw- 
ful usurpation. The restdt is kept out of sight by this 
mode of reasoning. The discretion to decline that result, 
which is called a universal proposition, is singly obtruded 
upon us. But in order to reason correctly, you must keep 
in view the defined result, as well as the discretion to pro- 
duce or to decline to produce it. The result is the particu- 
lar part of the proposition ; therefore, the discretion to 
21 



322 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

produce or decline it, is the universal part of it. But 
because the last is found to be universal, it is taken for 
granted that the first is also universal. This is a sophism 
too manifest to impose. 

But discarding the machinery of syllogisms as unfit for 
such a discussion as this, let us look at the clause with a 
view of interpreting it by the rules of sound logic and com- 
mon sense. 

The power is " to admit new States into this Union ;" 
and it may be safely conceded that here is discretion to 
admit or refuse. The question is, What must we do if we 
do any thing ? What must we admit, and into what ? 
The answer is a State — and into tliis Union. 

The distinction between federal rights and local rights, 
is an idle distinction. Because the new State acquires 
federal rights, it is not, therefore, in tliis Union. The Union 
is a compact ; and is it an equal party to that compact, be- 
cause it has equal federal rights ? 

How is the Union formed ? By equal contributions of 
power. Make one member sacrifice more than other, and it 
becomes unequal. The compact is of two parts. 

1. The thing obtained — federal rights. 

2. The price paid — local sovereignty. 

You may distm'b the balance of the Union, either by di- 
minishing the thing acquired, or increasing the sacrifice 
paid. 

What were the purposes of coming into the Union 
among the original States ? The States were originally 
sovereign without limit, as to foreign and domestic concerns. 
But being incapable of protecting themselves singly, they 
entered into the Union to defend themselves against foreign 
violence. The domestic concerns of the people were not, in 
general, to be acted on by it. The security of the power of 
managing them by domestic legislation, is one of the great 
objects of the Union. The Union is a means, not an end. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

By requiring greater sacrifices of domestic power, the end is 
sacrificed to the means. Suppose the surrender of all, or 
nearly all, the domestic powers of legislation were required ; 
the means would there have swallowed up the end. 

The argument that the compact may be enforced, shows 
that the federal predicament is changed. The power of the 
Union not only acts on persons or citizens, but on the 
faculty of the government, and restrains it in a way which 
the constitution nowhere authorizes. This new obligation 
takes away a right which is expressly " reserved to the peo- 
ple or the States," since it is nowhere granted to the govern- 
ment of the Union. You cannot do indirectly what you 
cannot do directly. It is said that this Union is competent 
to make compacts. Who doubts it ? But can you make 
this compact ; I insist that you cannot make it, because it 
is repugnant to the thing to be done. 

The effect of such a compact would be to produce that 
inequality in the Union, to which the constitution, in aU its 
provisions, is adverse. Every thing in it looks to equahty 
among the members of the Union. Under it, you cannot 
produce inequality. Nor can you get beforehand of the con- 
stitution, and do it by anticipation. Wait untU a State is 
in the Union, and you cannot do it : yet it is only upon the 
State in the Union that what you do begins to act. 

^fi i? ^ '•? ifi ifi ifi sff i\% 

But it seems, that although the proposed restriction may 
not be justified by the clause of the constitution which gives 
power to admit new States into the Union, separately con- 
sidered, there are other parts of the constitution which com- 
bined with that clause will warrant it. And first we are 
informed that there is a clause in this instrument which de- 
clares that Congress shall guarantee to every State a repub- 
lican form of government ; that slavery and such a form of 
government are incompatible ; and finally, as a conclusion 
from these premises, that Congress not only have a riyht^ 



324 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

but are hound to exclude slavery from a new State. Here 
again, Sir, there is an edifying inconsistency between the ar- 
gument and the measure which it professes to vindicate. 
By the argument it is maintained that Missouri cannot have 
a repubhcan form of government, and at the same time toler- 
ate negro slavery. By the measure it is admitted that Mis- 
souri may tolerate slavery, as to persons already in bondage 
there, and be nevertheless fit to be received into the Union, 
What sort of constitutional mandate is this which can thus 
be made to bend, and truckle, and compromise as if it were 
a simple rule of expediency that might admit of exceptions 
upon motives of countervailing expediency ? There can be 
no such pliancy in the peremptory provisions of the consti- 
tution. They cannot be obeyed by moieties and violated in 
the same ratio. They must be followed out to their full 
extent, or treated with that decent neglect which has at 
least the merit of forbearing to render contumacy obtrusive 
by an ostentatious display of the very duty which we in part 
abandon. If the decalogue could be observed in this casu- 
istical manner, we might be grievous sinners, and yet be 
liable to no reproach. We might persist in all our habitual 
irregularities, and still be spotless. We might, for example, 
continue to covet our neighbors' goods, provided they were 
the same neighbors whose goods we had before coveted — and 
so of all the other commandments. 

WiU the gentlemen tell us that it is the quantity of 
slaves, not the quality of slavery, which takes from a govern- 
ment the republican form ? Will they tell us (for they 
have not yet told us) that there are constitutional grounds 
(to say nothing of common sense) upon which the slavery 
which now exists in Missouri may be reconciled with a re- 
publican form of government, while any addition to the 
number of its slaves (the quality of slavery remaining the 
same) from the other States, will be repugnant to that form, 
and metamorphose it into some non-descript government 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 325 

disowned by the constitution ? They cannot have recourse 
to the treaty of 1803 for such a distinction, since indepen- 
dently of what I have before observed on that head, the 
g-cntlemen have contended that the treaty has nothing to do 
witli the matter. They have cut themselves off from all 
chance of a convenient distinction in or out of that treaty, 
by insisting that slavery beyond the old United States is re- 
jected by the constitution, and by the law of God as discov- 
erable by the aid of either reason or revelation ; and more- 
over that the treaty does not include the case, and if it did 
could not make it better. They have therefore completely 
discredited their own theory by their own practice, and left 
us no theory worthy of being seriously controverted. This 
peculiarity in reasoning, of giving out a universal principle 
and coupling with it a practical concession that it is wholly 
fallacious, has indeed run through the greater part of the 
arguments on the other side ; but it is not, as I think, the 
more imposing on that account, or the less Kable to the cri- 
ticism which I have here bestowed upon it. 

There is a remarkable inaccuracy on this branch of the 
subject into which the gentlemen have fallen, and to which 
I will give a moment's attention without laying unnecessary 
stress upon it. The government of a new State, as well as 
of an old State, must, I agree, be republican in its form. 
But it has not been veiy clearly explained what the Icavs 
which such a government may enact can have to do. with its 
form. The form of the government is material only as it 
furnishes a security that those laws will protect and promote 
the public happiness, and be made in a repubhcan spirit. 
The people being, in such a government, the fountain of 
all power, and their servants being periodically responsible 
to them for its exercise, the constitution of the Union takes 
for granted, (except so far as it imposes limitations,) that 
eveiy such exercise will be just and salutary. The intro- 
duction or continuance of civil slavery is manifestly the mere 



326 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

result of the power of making laws. It does not in any 
degree enter into the form of the government. It pre-sup- 
poses that form already settled, and takes its rise not from 
the particular frame of the government, but from the gene- 
ral power which every government involves. Make the gov- 
ernment what you will in its organization and in the distri- 
bution of its authorities, the introduction or continuance of 
involuntary servitude by the legislative power which it has 
created can have no influence on its pre-estabUshed form, 
whetlier monarchical, aristocratical, or repubhcan. The 
form of government is still one thing, and the law, being a 
simple exertion of the ordinary faculty of legislation by those 
to whom that form of government has intrusted it, another. 
The gentlemen, however, identify an act of legislation sanc- 
tioning involuntary servitude with the form of government 
itself, and then assure us that the last is changed retroac- 
tively by the first, and is no longer republican ! 

But let us proceed to take a rapid glance at the reasons 
which have been assigned for this notion that involuntary 
servitude and a republican form of government are perfect 
antipathies. The gentleman from New-Hampshire* has de- 
fined a republican government to be that in which all the 
7ne7i participate in its power and privileges : from whence it 
follows that where there are slaves, it can have no existence, 
A definition is no proof, however; and even if it be dignified 
(as I thijik it was) with the name of a maxim, the matter 
is not much mended. It is Lord Bacon who says "that 
nothing is so easily made as a maxim ;" and certainly a 
definition is manufactured with equal facility. A polit- 
ical maxim is the work of induction, and cannot stand 
against experience, or stand on any thing but experience. 
But this maxim, or definition, or whatever else it may be 
sets fact at defiance. If you go back to antiquity, you 

* Mr. Morril. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 327 

will obtain no countenance for this hypothesis ; and if you 
look at home you will gain still less. I have read that 
Sparta, and Kome, and Athens, and many others of the 
ancient family were republics. They were so in form un- 
doubtedly — the last approaching nearer to a perfect demo- 
cracy than any other government which has yet been known 
in the world. Judging of them also by their fruits, they 
were of the highest order of republics. Sparta could 
scarcely be any other than a republic, when a Spartan 
matron could say to her son just marching to battle, Ee- 

TUKN VICTORIOUS, OR RETURN NQ MORE, It WaS the UUCOU- 

querable spirit of liberty, nurtured by repubhcan habits 
and institutions, that illustrated the pass of Thermopylse. 
Yet slavery was not only tolerated in Sparta, but was estab- 
lished by one of the fundamental laws of Lycurgus, having 
for its object the encouragement of that very spirit, Attica 
was full of slaves — yet the love of liberty was its charac- 
teristic. What else was it that foiled tlie whole power of 
Persia at Marathon and Salamis ? What other soil than 
that which the genial Sun of Republican Freedom illumin- 
ated and warmed, could have produced such men as Leo- 
nidas and Miltiades, Themistocles and Epaminondas ? 
Of Rome it would be superfluous to speak at large. It is 
sufficient to name the mighty mistress of the world, before 
SyUa gave the first stab to her liberties and the great dic- 
tator accomplished their final ruin, to be reminded of the 
practicability of union between civil slavery and an ardent 
love of liberty cherished by repubhcan establishments. 

If we return home for instruction upon tliis point, we 
perceive that same union exemplified in many a State, in 
which " Liberty has a temple in every house, an altar in 
every heart," while involuntary servitude is seen in every 
direction. Is it denied that those States possess a repubh- 
can form of government ? If it is, why does our power 
of correction sleep ? Why is the constitutional guaranty 



328 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

suffered to be inactive ? Why am I permitted to fatigue 
you, as the representative of a slaveholding State, with the 
discussion of the nugce canoroe (for so I think them) 
that have been forced into this debate contrary to all the 
remonstrances of taste and prudence ? Do gentlemen per- 
ceive the consequences to which their arguments must lead 
if they are of any value ? Do they reflect that they lead 
to emancipation in the old United States — or to an exclu- 
sion of Delaware, Maryland, and all the South, and a great 
portion of the West, from the Union ? My honorable 
friend from Virginia has no business here, if this disor- 
ganizing creed be any thing but the production of a heated 
brain. The State to which I belong, must " perform a lus- 
tration" — must purge and purify herself from the feculence 
of civil slavery, and emulate the States of the north in 
their zeal for throwing down the gloomy idol which we are 
said to worship, before her senators can have any title to ap- 
pear in this high assembly. It will be in vain to urge that 
the old United States are exceptions to the rule — or rather 
(as the gentlemen express it), that they have no disposition 
to apply the rule to them. There can be no exceptions, by 
imphcation only, to such a rule ; and expressions which jus- 
tify the exemption of the old States by inference, will jus- 
tify the like exemption of Missouri, unless they point ex- 
clusively to them, as I have shown they do not. The 
guai'ded manner, too, in which some of the gentlemen have 
occasionally expressed themselves on tliis subject, is some- 
what alarming. They have no disposition to meddle with 
slavery in the old United States. Perhaps not — but who 
shall answer for their successors ? Who shall furnish a 
pledge that the principle once engrafted into the constitu- 
tion, will not grow, and spread, and fructify, and overshadow 
the whole land ? It is the natural office of such a principle 
to wrestle with slavery, wheresoever it finds it. New 
States, colonized by the apostles of this principle, will 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 329 

enable it to set on foot a fanatical crusade against all who 
still continue to tolerate it, although no practicable means 
are pointed out by which they can get rid of it consistently 
with their own safety. At any rate, a present forbearing 
disposition, in a few or in many, is not a security upon 
which much reliance can be placed upon a subject as to 
which so many selfish interests and ardent feelings are con- 
nected with the cold calculations of poHcy. Admitting, 
however, that the old United States are in no danger from 
this principle — why is it so ? There can be no other an- 
swer (which these zealous enemies of slavery can use) than 
that the constitution recognizes slavery as existing or 
capable of existing in those States. The constitution, then, 
admits that slavery and a republican form of government 
are not incongruous. It associates and binds them up to- 
gether, and repudiates this wild imagination which the gen- 
tlemen have pressed upon us with such an air of triumph. 
But the constitution does more, as I have heretofore jjroved. 
It concedes that slavery may exist in a new State, as well as 
in an old one — since the language in which it recognizes 
slavery comprehends new States as well as actual. I trust 
then that I shall be forgiven if I suggest, that no eccentri- 
city in argument can be more trying to human patience, 
than a formal assertion that a constitution, to which slave- 
holding States were the most numerous parties, in which 
slaves are treated as property as well as persohi.. nnd provi- 
sion is made for the security of that j)roperty, and even for 
an augmentation of it, by a temporary importation from 
Africa, a clause commanding Congress to guarantee a repub- 
lican form of government to those very States, as well as to 
others, authorizes you to determine that slavery and a re- 
pubhcan form of government cannot coexist. 

But if a republican form of government is that in which 
all the men have a share in the pubHc power, the slave- 
holding States wOl not alone retire from the Union. The 



330 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

constitutions of some of the other States do not sanction uni- 
versal suffrage, or universal eligibility. They require citizen- 
ship, and age, and a certain amount of property, to give a 
title to vote or to be voted for ; and they who have not those 
qualifications are just as much disfranchised, with regard to 
the government and its power, as if they were slaves. They 
have civil rights indeed (and so have slaves in a less degree) ; 
but they have no share in the government. Their province 
is to obey the laws, not to assist in making them. All such 
States must therefore be forisfamiliated with Virginia and 
the rest, or change their system : for the constitution being 
absolutely silent on those subjects, will afford them no pro- 
tection. The Union might thus be reduced from an Union 
to an unit. Who does not see that such conclusions flow 
from false notions — that the true theory of a republican gov- 
ernment is mistaken — and that in such a government, rights 
political and civil, may be qualified by the fundamental law, 
upon such inducements as the freemen of the country deem 
sufficient ? That civil rights may be qualified as well as 
political, is proved by a thousand examples. Minors, resi- 
dent aliens, who are in a course of naturalization — the other 
sex, whether maids or wives, or widows, furnish sufficient 
practical proofs of this. 

Again; if we are to entertain these hopeful abstractions, 
and to resolve all establishments into their imaginary ele- 
ments in order to recast them upon some Utopian plan, and 
if it be true that aU the men in a republican government 
must help to wield its power, and be equal in rights, I beg 
leave to ask the honorable gentleman from New Hampshire — 
and why not all the women ? They too are God's creatures, 
and not only very fair but very rational creatures ; and our 
great ancestor, if we are to give credit to Milton, accounted 
them the " wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best ;" although 
to say the truth he had but one specimen from which to 
draw his conclusion, and possibly if he had had more, would 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 331 

not have drawn it at all. They have, moreover, acknowledged 
civil rights in abundance, and upon abstract principles more 
than their masculine rulers allow them in fjict. Some 
monarchies, too, do not exclude them from the throne. We 
have all read of Ehzabeth of England, of Catharine of Kus- 
sia, of Semiramis, and Zenobia, and a long hst of royal and 
imperial dames, about as good as an equa^ list of royal and 
imperial lords. Why is it that their exclusion from the 
power of a popular government is not destructive of its re- 
publican character ? I do not address this question to the 
honorable gentleman's gallantry, but to his abstraction, and 
his theories, and his notions of the infinite perfectibility of 
human institutions, borrowed from Godwin and the turbulent 
philosophers of France. For my own part. Sir, if I may 
have leave to say so much in the presence of this mixed un- 
common audience, I confess I am no' friend to female govern- 
ment, unless indeed it be that which reposes on gentleness, 
and modesty, and virtue, and feminine grace and delicacy ; 
and how powerful a government that is, we have all of us, as 
I suspect, at some time or other experienced ! But if the 
ultra repubhcan doctrines which have now been broached 
should ever gain ground among us, I should not be surprised 
if some romantic reformer, treading in the footsteps of Mrs. 
Wolstoncraft, should propose to repeal our republican law 
salique, and claim for our wives and daughters a full par- 
ticipation in political power, and to add to it that domestic 
power, which in some famiUes, as I have heard, is as absolute 
and unrepubhcan as any power can be. 

I have thus far allowed the honorable gentlemen to avail 
themselves of their assumption that the constitutional com- 
mand to guarantee to the States a repubhcan form of 
government, gives power to coerce those states in the ad- 
justment of the details of their constitutions upon theo- 
retical speculations. But surely it is passing strange that 
any man, who thinks at aU, can view this salutary command 



332 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

as the grant of a power so monstrous ; or look at it in any 
other light than as a protecting mandate to Congress to in- 
terpose with the force and authority of the Union against 
that violence and usurpation, hy which a member of it might 
otherwise he oppressed by profligate and powerful individuals, 
or ambitious and unprincipled factions. 

In a word, the, resort to this portion of the constitution 
for an argument in favor of the proposed restriction, is one 
of those extravagancies (I hope I shall not offend by this ex- 
pression) which may excite our admiration, but cannot call 
for a very rigorous refutation. I have dealt with it accord- 
ingly, and have now done with it. 

We are next imited to study that clause of the consti- 
tution which relates to the migration or importation, before 
the year 1808, of such persons as any of the States then ex- 
isting should think proper to admit. It runs thus : " The 
migration or importation of such persons as any of the States 
now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be pro- 
hibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight 
hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed 
on such importation not exceeding ten doUars for each 
person." 

It is said that this clause empowers Congress, after the 
year 1808, to prohibit the passage of slaves from State 
to State, and the word " migration" is relied upon for that 
purpose. 

I will not say that the proof of the existence of a power 
by a clause which, as far as it goes, denies it, is always inad- 
missible ; but I wiU say that it is always feeble. On this 
occasion, it is singularly so. The power, in an affirmative 
shape, cannot be found in the constitution; or if it can, it 
is equivocal and unsatisfactory. How do the gentlemen 
supply this deficiency ? by the aid of a negative provision in 
an article of the constitution in which many restrictions are 
inserted ex ohundanti cautela, from which it is plainly im- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 333 

possible to infer that the power to which they apply would 
otherwise have existed. Thus : " No bill of attainder or ex 
l^ost facto law shall be passed." Take away the restriction, 
could Congress pass a bill of attainder, the trial by jury in 
criminal cases being exjjressly secured by the constitution ? 
The inference, therefore, from the prohibition in question, 
whatever may be its meaning, to the power which it is sup- 
posed to restrain, but which you cannot lay your finger upon 
with any pretensions to certainty, must be a very doubtful 
one. But the import of the prohibition is also doubtful, as 
the gentlemen themselves admit. So that a doubtful power 
is to be made certain by a yet more doubtful negative upon 
power — or rather a doubtful negative, where there is no evi- 
dence of the corresponding affirmative, is to make out the 
affirmative and to justify us in acting upon it, in a matter 
of such high moment, that questionable power should not 
dare to approach it. If the negative were perfectly clear in 
its import, the conclusion which has been drawn from it 
would be rash, because it might have proceeded, as some of 
the negatives in whose company it is found evidently did 
proceed, from great anxiety to prevent such assumptions of 
authority as are now attempted. But when it is conceded, 
that the supposed import of this negative (as to the term, 
migration) is ambiguous, and that it may have been used in 
a very difterent sense from that which is imputed to it, the 
conclusion acquires a character of boldness, which, however 
some may admire, the wise and reflecting will not fail to 
condemn. 

In the construction of this clause, the first remark that 
occurs is, that the word migration is associated with the 
word IMPORTATION. I do not insist that noscitur a sociis is 
as good a rule in matters of interpretation as in common 
life ; but it is, nevertheless, of considerable weight when the 
associated words are not qualified by any phrases that disturb 
the effect of their fellowshij) ; and unless it announces (as 



334 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

in this case it does not), by specific phrases combined with 
the associated term, a different intention. Moreover, the 
ordinary unrestricted import of the word migration is what 
I have here supposed. A removal from district to district, 
within the same jurisdiction, is never denominated a migra- 
tion of persons. I will concede to the honorable gentlemen, 
if they will accej)t the concession, that ants may be said to 
migrate when they go from one ant-hill to another at no 
great distance from it. But even then they could not be 
said to migrate, if each ant-hill was their home in virtue of 
some federal compact with insects like themselves. But, 
however this may be, it should seem to be certain that hu- 
man beings do not migrate, in the sense of a constitution, 
simply because they transplant themselves, from one place, 
to which that constitution extends, to another which it 
equally covers. 

If this word migration applied to freemen, and not to 
slaves, it would be clear that removal from State to State 
would not be comprehended within it. Why then, if you 
choose to apply it to slaves, does it take another meaning as 
to the place from whence they are to come ? 

Sir, if we once depart from the usual acceptation of this 
term, fortified as it is by its union with another in which 
there is nothing in this respect equivocal, will gentlemen 
please to intimate the point at which we are to stop ? 3Iigra~ 
tion means, as they contend, a removal from State to State, 
within the pale of the common government. Why not a re- 
moval also from county to county within a particular 
State — from plantation to plantation — from farm to farm — 
from hovel to hovel ? Why not any exertion of the power 
of locomotion ? I protest I do not see, if this arbitrary 
limitation of the natural sense of the term migration be war- 
rantable, that a person to whom it applies may not be com- 
pelled to remain immovable all the days of his life (which 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 335 

coiild not well be many) in the very spot, literally siteaking, 
in which it was his good or his bad fortune to be born. 

Whatever may be the latitude in which the word "per- 
sons" is capable of being received, it is not denied that the 
word "importation" indicates a bringing in from a jurisdic- 
tion foreign to the United States. The two termini of the 
importation, here spoken of, are a foreign country and the 
American Union — the fiist the terminus a quo, the second 
the terminus ad quern. The word migration stands in sim- 
ple connection with it, and of course is left to the full in- 
fluence of that connection. The natural conclusion is, that 
the same termini belong to each, or in other words, that if 
the importation must be abroad, so also must be the onigra- 
tion — no other termini being assigned to the one which are 
not manifestly characteristic of the other. This conclusion 
is so obvious, that to repel it, the word migration requires, 
as an appendage, explanatory phraseology, giving to it a dif- 
ferent beginning from that of importation. To justify the 
conclusion that it was intended to mean a removal from 
State to State, each within the si)here of the constitution in 
which it is used, the addition of the words from one to 
another State in this Union, were indispensable. By the 
omission of these words, the word " migration" is compelled 
to take every sense of which it is fairly susceptible from its 
immediate neighbor " importation." In this view it means 
a coming, as " importation" means a hinging, from a foreign 
jurisdiction into the United States. That it is susceptible 
of this meaning, nobody doubts. I go further. It can have 
no other meaning in the place in which it is found. It is 
found in the constitution of this Union — which, when it 
speaks of migration as of a general concern, must be sup- 
posed to have in view a migration into the domain which 
itself embraces as a general government. 

Migration, then, even if it comprehends slaves, does not 
mean the removal of them from State to State, but means 



336 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

the coming of slaves from places beyond their limits and 
their power. And if this be so, the gentlemen gain nothing 
for their argument by showing that slaves were the objects 
of this term. 

An honorable gentleman from Ehode Island,'''' whose 
speech was distinguished for its ability, and for an admirable 
force of reasoning, as well as by the moderation and mildness 
of its spirit, informed us, with less discretion than in general 
he exhibited, that the word " migration" was introduced into 
this clause at the instance of some of the Southern States, 
who wished by its instrumentality to guard against a pro- 
hibition by Congress of the passage into those States of 
slaves from other States. He has given us no authority for 
this supposition, and it is, therefore, a gratuitous one. How 
improbable it is, a moment's reflection will convince him. 
The African slave-trade being open during the whole of the 
time to which the entire clause in question referred, such a 
purpose could scarely be entertained ; but if it had been en- 
tertained, and there was believed to be a necessity for secur- 
ing it, by a restriction upon the power of Congress to interfere 
with it, is it possible that they who deemed it important 
would have contented themselves with a vague restraint, 
which was calculated to operate in almost any other manner 
than that which they desired ? If fear and jealousy, such 
as the honorable gentleman has described, had dictated this 
provision, a better term than that of " migration," simple 
and unqualified, and joined too with the word " importa- 
tion," would have been found to tranquillize those fears and 
satisfy that jealousy. Fear and jealousy are watchful, and 
are rarely seen to accept a security short of their object, and 
less rarely to shape that security, of their own accord, in 
such a way as to make it no security at aU. They always 
seek an explicit guaranty ; and that this is not such a gua- 

* Mr. Bui-rUl. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM TINKNET. 337 

ranty this debate lias proved, if it has proved nothiii<^ 
else. 

Sir, I shall not be understood by what I have said to ad- 
mit that the word m igration refers to slaves. I have contended 
only that if it does refer to slaves, it is in this clause syno- 
nymous with importation; and that it cannot mean the 
mere passage of slaves, with or without their masters, from 
one State in the Union to another. 

But I now deny that it refers to slaves at all. I am not 
for any man's opinions or his histories upon this subject. I 
am not accustomed jurare in verba magistri. I shall take 
the clause as I find it, and do my best to interpret it. 

[After going through with that part of his argument re- 
lating to this clause of the constitution, which I have not 
been able to restore from the imperfect notes in my posses- 
sion, Mr. Pinkney concluded his speech by expressing a hope 
that (what he deemed) the perilous principles urged by 
those in favor of the restriction upon the new State would 
be disavowed or explained, or that at all events the applica- 
tion of them to the subject under discussion w^ould not be 
pressed, but that it might be disposed of in a manner satis- 
factory to all by a prospective prohibition of slavery in the 
territory to the north and west of Missouri.] 



SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPKESENTATIVES ON THE TREATY-i 
MAKING POWER. 

In the debate upon the bill to carry into effect the 
British convention of 1815, Mr. Pinkney said : He intended 
yesterday, if the state of his health had permitted, to have 
trespassed on the House with a short sketch of the grounds 
upon which he disapproved of the bill. What I could not 
do then, (said he,) I am about to endeavor now, under the 
22 



338 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

pressure, nevertheless, of continuing indisposition, as well as 
under the influence of a natural reluctance thus to manifest 
an apparently ambitious and improvident huny to lay aside 
the character of a listener to the wisdom of others, by which 
I could not fail to profit, for that of an expounder of my own 
humble notions, which are not likely to be profitable to any 
body. It is, iiideed, but too probable that I should best 
have consulted both delicacy and discretion, if I had forborne 
this precipitate attempt to launch my little bark upon what 
an honorable member has aptly termed "the torrent of de- 
bate " which this bill has produced. 1 am conscious that it 
may with singular propriety be said of me, that I am noves 
Jiospes here ; that I have scarcely begun to acquire a domicil 
among those whom I am undertaking to address ; and that re- 
cently transplanted hither from courts of judicature, I ought 
for a season to look upon myself as a sort of exotic, which 
time has not sufficiently familiarized with the soil to which it 
has been removed, to enable it to put forth either fruit or 
flower. However all this may be, it is now too late to be 
silent. I proceed, therefore, to entreat your indulgent atten- 
tion to the few words with which I have to trouble you upon 
the subject under deliberation. 

That subject has already been treated Avith an admirable 
force and perspicuity on all sides of the House. The strong 
power of argument has drawn aside, as it ought to do, the 
veil which is supposed to belong to it, and which some of us 
seem unwilling to disturb ; and the stronger power of genius, 
'from a higher region than that of argument, has thrown 
upon it all the light with which it is the prerogative of genius 
to invest and illustrate every thing. It is fit that it should 
be so ; for the subject is worthy by its dignity and impor- 
tance to employ in the discussion of it all the powers of the 
mind, and all the eloquence by which I have already felt 
that this assembly is distinguished. The subject is the fun- 
damental law. We owe it to the people to labor with sin- 



LIFE OP WILLIAM riNKNET. 339 

cerity and diligence, to ascertain the true construction of 
that hiw, which is but a record of their will. We owe it to 
the obligations of the oath which has recently been imprinted 
upon our consciences, as well as to the people, to be obedient 
to that will when we have succeeded in ascertaining it . I 
shall give you my opinion upon this matter, with the utmost 
deference for the judgment of others ; but at the same time 
with that honest and unreserved freedom which becomes this 
place, and is suited to my habits. 

Before we can be in a situation to decide whethpr this 
bill ought to pass, we must know precisely what it is ; what it 
is not is obvious. It is not a bill which is auxiliary to the 
treaty. It docs not deal with details which the treaty does 
not bear in its own bosom. It contains no subsidiary enact- 
ments, no dependent provisions, flowing as corollaries from 
the treaty. It is not to raise money, or to make appropria- 
tions, or to do any thing else beyond or out of the treaty. It 
acts simjily as the echo of the treaty. 

Inrjeminat voces, aiiditaque verha reportat. It may 
properly be called the twin brother of the treaty; its dupli- 
cate, its reflected image, for it re-enacts with a timid fidelity, 
somewhat inconsistent with the boldness of its pretensions, 
all that the treaty stipulates, and having performed that 
work of supererogation, stoj)s. It once attempted something 
more, indeed ; but that surplus has been expunged from it 
as a desperate intruder, as something which might violate, 
by a misinterjiretation of the treaty, that very public fiith 
which we are now prepared to say the treaty has never 
plighted in any the smallest degree. In a word, the bill is 
2i. facsimile of the treaty in all its clauses. 

I am warranted in concluding, then, that if it be any 
thing but an empty form of words, it is a conjirmation or 
ratification of the treaty; or, to speak with a more guarded 
accuracy, is an act to wliich only (if passed into law) the 
treaty can owe its being. If it does not sj^ring from the 



340 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 

pruritas leges ferendi, by which this body can never be 
afflicted, I am warranted in saying, that it springs from an 
hypothesis (which may afflict us with a worse disease) that 
no treaty of commerce can be made by any power in the 
state but Congress. It stands upon that postulate, or it is 
a mere bubble, which might be suifered to float through the 
forms of legislation, and then to burst without consequence 
or notice. 

That this postulate is utterly irreconcilable with the 
claims and port with which this convention comes before you, 
it is impossible to deny. Look at it ! Has it the air or 
shape of a mere pledge that the President will recommend 
to Congress the passage of such laws as will produce the 
effect at which it aims ? Does it profess to be preliminary, 
or provisional, or inchoate, or to rely upon your instrumen- 
tality in the consummation of it, or to take any notice of 
you, however distant, as actual or eventual parties to it ? 
No, it pretends upon the face of it, and in the solemnities 
with which it has been accompanied and followed, to be a 
pact Avith a foreign state, complete and self-efficient, from 
the obligation of which this government cannot now escape, 
and to the perfection of which no more is necessary than has 
already been done. It contains the clause which is found in 
the treaty of 1794, and substantially in every other treaty 
made by the United States under the present constitution, 
so as to become a formula, that, when ratified by the Presi- 
dent of the United States, by and with the advice and con- 
sent of the Senate, and by his Britannic majesty, and the 
respective ratifications mutually exchanged, it shall be bind- 
ing and obligatory on the said states and his majesty. 

It has been ratified in conformity with that clause. Its 
ratifications have been exchanged in the established and 
stipulated mode. It has been proclaimed, as other treaties 
have been proclaimed, by the executive government, as an 
integral portion of the law of the land, and our citizens at 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 341 

home and abroad, have been admonished to keep and observe 
it accordingly. It has been sent to the other contracting 
party with the last stamp of the national faith upon it, after 
the manner of former treaties with the same power, and 
will have been received and acted upon by that party as a 
concluded contract, long before your loitering legislation can 
overtake it. I protest, Sir, I am somewhat at a loss to un- 
derstand what this convention has been since its ratifications 
were exchanged, and what it is now, if our bill be sound in 
its principle. Has it not been, and is it not an unintelligible, 
unbaptized and unbaptizable thing, without attributes of any 
kind, bearing the semblance of an executed compact, but in 
reality a hollow fiction ; a thing which no man is led to con- 
sider even as the germ of a treaty, entitled to be cherished 
in the vineyard of the constitution ; a thing which, profess- 
ing to have done every tiling that public honor demands, has 
done nothing but practise delusion ? You may ransack 
every diplomatic nomenclature and run through every voca- 
bulary, whether of diplomacy or law, and you shall not find a 
word by which you may distinguish, if our bill be correct in 
its hypothesis, this " deed without a name." A plain man 
who is not used to manage his phrases, may, therefore, pre- 
sume to say that if this convention with England be not a 
valid treaty, which does not stand in need of your assistance, 
it is an usurpation on the part of those who have undertaken 
to make it ; that if it be not an act within the treaty-making 
capacity, confided to the President and Senate, it is an en- 
croachment on the legislative rights of Congress. 

I am one of those who view the bill upon the table, as 
declaring that it is not within that capacity, as looking down 
upon the convention as the still-born progeny of arrogated 
power, as offering to it the paternity of Congress, and affect- 
ing by that paternity to give to it life and strength ; and as I 
think that the convention does not stand in need of any such 
filiation, to make it either strong or legitimate, that it is 



342 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

already all that it can become, and tliat useless legislation 
upon such a subject is vicious legislation, I shall vote against 
the bill. The correctness of these opinions is what I propose 
to establish. 

I lay it down as an incontrovertible truth, that the con- 
stitution has assumed (and, indeed, how could it do other- 
wise ?) that the government of the United States might and 
would have occasion, like the other governments of the 
civilized world, to enter into treaties with foreign powers, 
upon the various subjects involved in their mutual relations ; 
and further, that it might be, and was proper to designate 
the department of the government in which the capacity to 
make such treaties should be lodged. It has said, accord- 
ingly, that the President, with the concurrence of the Sen- 
ate, shall possess this portion of the national sovereignty. 
It has, furthermore, given to the same magistrate, with the 
same concurrence, the exclusive creation and control of the 
whole machinery of diplomacy. He only, with the appro- 
bation of the Senate, can appoint a negotiator, or take any 
step towards negotiation. The constitution does not, in any 
part of it, even intimate that any other department shall 
possess either a constant or an occasional right to interpose 
in the preparation of any treaty, or in the final perfection 
of it. The President and Senate are explicitly pointed out 
as the sole actors in that sort of transaction. The pre- 
scribed concurrence of the Seriate, and that too by a major- 
ity greater than the ordinary legislative majority,- plainly 
excludes the necessity of congressional concurrence. If the 
consent of Congress to any treaty had been intended, the 
constitution would not have been guilty of the absurdity of 
first putting a treaty for ratification to the President and 
Senate exclusively, and again to the same President and 
Senate as portions of the legislature. It would have sub- 
mitted the whole matter at once to Congress, and the 
more especially, as the ratification of a treaty by the Senate, 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 343 

as a branch of the legislature, may be by a smaller number 
than a ratification of it by the same body, as a branch of 
the executive government. If the ratification of any treaty 
by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, 
must be followed by a legislative ratification, it is a mere 
nonentity. It is good for all purposes, or for none. And if 
it be nothing in efi'ect, it is a mockery by which nobody would 
be bound. The President and Senate would not themselves 
be bound by it — and the ratification would at last depend, 
not upon the will of the President and two-thirds of the 
Senate, but upon the will of a bare majority of the two 
branches of the legislature, subject to the qualified legisla- 
tive control of the President. 

Upon the power of the President and Senate, therefore, 
there can be no doubt. The only question is as to the ex- 
tent of it, or in other words, as to the subject upon which 
jt may be exerted. The efed of the power, when exerted 
within its lawful sphere, is beyond the reach of controversy. 
The constitution has declared, that whatsoever amounts to 
a treaty, made under the authority of the United States, 
shall immediately be supreme law. It has contradistin- 
guished a treatij as law from an ad of Congi^ess as law. It 
has erected treaties, so contradistinguished, into a binding 
judicial rule. It has given them to our courts of justice, in 
defining their jurisdiction, as a portion of the lex terrcB, 
which they are to interpret and enforce. In a word, it has 
communicated to them, if ratified by the department which 
it has specially provided for the making of them, the rank 
of law, or it has spoken without meaning. And if it has 
not elevated them to that rank, it is idle to attempt to 
raise them to it by ordinaiy legislation. 

Upon the extent of the power, or the subjects upon 
which it may act, there is as little room for controversy. 
The power is to make treaties. The word treaties is nomen 
generalissimum, and will comprehend commercial treaties, 



344 LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNET. 

unless there be a limit upon it by which they are excluded. 
It is the appellative, which will take in the whole species, if 
there be nothing to narrow its scope. There is no such 
limit. There is not a syllable in the context of the clause 
to restrict the natural imi)ort of its phraseology. The 
power is left to the force of the generic term, and is, there- 
fore, as wide as a treaty-making power can be. It em- 
braces all the varieties of treaties which it could be sup- 
posed this government could find it necessary or proper to 
make, or it embraces none. It covers the whole treaty- 
making ground which this government could be expected to 
occupy, or not an inch of it. 

It is a just presumption, that it was designed to be co- 
extensive with all the exigencies of our affairs. Usage 
sanctions that presumption — expediency does the same. 
The omission of any exception to the power, the omission of 
the designation of a mode by which a treaty, not intended 
to be included within it, might otherwise be made, confirms 
it. That a commercial treaty was, above all others, in the 
contemplation of the constitution, is manifest. The imme- 
morial practice of Europe, and particularly of the nation 
from which we emigrated, the consonance of enlightened 
theory to that practice, prove it. It may be said, indeed, 
that at the epoch of the birth of our constitution, the neces- 
sity for a power to make commercial treaties was scarcely 
visible, for that our trade was then in its infancy. It was 
so ; but it was the infancy of another Hercules, promising, 
not indeed a victory over the lion of Nemgea, or the boar of 
Erymanthus, but the peaceful conquest of every sea which 
could be subjected to the dominion of commercial enterprise. 
It was then as apparent as it is now, that the destinies of 
this great nation were irrevocably commercial ; that the 
ocean would be whitened by our sails, and the tcltima Thule 
of the world compelled to witness the more than Phoenician 
spirit and intelligence of our merchants. With this glo- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 345 

rious anticipation dawning upon tliem — with this resplen- 
dent Aurora gilding the prospect of the future ; nay, with 
the risen orb of trade illuminating the vast horizon of Ame- 
rican greatness, it cannot be supposed that the framers of 
the constitution did not look to the time when we should be 
called upon to make commercial conventions. It needs 
not the aid of the imagination to reject this disparaging and 
monstrous supposition. Dulness itself, throwing aside the 
lethargy of its character, and rising for a passing moment 
to the rapture of enthusiasm, will disclaim it with indig- 
nation. 

It is said, however, that the constitution has given to 
Congress the power to regulate commerce A\ith foreign na- 
tions ; and that, since it would be inconsistent with that power, 
that the President, with the consent of the Senate, should 
do the same thing, it follows, that this power of Congress is 
an exception out of the treaty-making power. Never were 
premises, as it appears to my understanding, less suited to 
the conclusion. The power of Congress to regulate our fo- 
reign trade, is a jjower of municipal legislation, and was 
designed to operate as far, as, upon such a subject, munici- 
pal legislation can reach. Without such a power, the gov- 
ernment would be wholly inadequate to the ends for which it 
was instituted. A power to regulate commerce by treaty 
alone, would touch only a portion of the subject. A wider 
and more general power was therefore indispensable, and it 
was properly devolved on Congress, as the legislature of 
the Union. 

On the other hand, a power of mere municipal legisla- 
tion, acting upon views exclusively our own, having no re- 
ference to a reciprocation of advantages by arrangements with 
a foreign state, would also fall short of the ends of govern- 
ment in a country of which the commercial relations are 
complex and extensive, and liable to be embarrassed by 
conflicts between its own interests and those of other na- 



346 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

tions. That the power of Congress is simply legislative in 
the strictest sense, and calculated for ordinary domestic regu- 
lation only, is plain from the language in which it is com- 
municated. There is nothing in that language which indi- 
cates regulation, by compact or compromise, nothing which 
points to the co-operation of a foreign power, nothing which 
designates a treaty-making faculty. It is not connected 
with any of the necessary accompaniments of that faculty ; 
it is not furnished with any of those means, without which 
it is impossible to make the smallest progress towards a 
treaty. 

It is self-evident, that a capacity to regulate com- 
merce by treaty, was intended by the constitution to 
be lodged somewhere. It is just as evident, that the legis- 
lative capacity of Congress does not amount to it ; and 
cannot be exerted to produce a treaty. It can produce only 
a statute, with which a foreign state cannot be made to 
concur, and which will not yield to any modifications which 
a foreign state may desire to impress upon it for suitable 
equivalents. There is no way in which Congress, as such, 
can mould its laws into treaties, if it respects the constitu- 
tion. It may legislate and counter-legislate ; but it must 
for ever be beyond its capacity to combine in a law, emanat- 
ing from its separate domestic authority, its own views with 
those of other governments, and to produce a harmonious 
reconcihation of those jarring purposes and discordant ele- 
ments which it is the business of negotiation to adjust. 

I reason thus, then, upon this part of the subject. It is 
clear that the power of Congress, as to foreign commerce, is 
only what it professes to be in the constitution, a legislative 
power, to be exerted municipally without consultation or 
agreement with those with whom we have an intercourse of 
trade ; it is undeniable that the constitution meant to pro- 
vide for the exercise of another power relatively to com- 
merce, which should exert itself in concert with the analo- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 347 

gous power in other countries, and should bring about its 
results, not by statute enacted by itself, but by an inter- 
national compact called a treaty ; that it is manifest, that 
this other power is vested by the constitution in the Presi- 
dent and Senftte, the only department of the government 
which it authorizes to make any treaty, and which it enables 
to make all treaties ; that if it be so vested, its regular ex- 
ercise must result in that which, as far as it reaches, is law 
in itself, and consequently repeals such municipal regula- 
tions as stand in its way, since it is expressly declared by 
the constitution that treaties regularly made shall have, as 
they ought to have, the force of law. In all this, I perceive 
nothing to perplex or alarm us. It exhibits a well digested 
and uniform j^lan of government, worthy of the excellent 
men by whom it was formed. The ordinary power to regu- 
late commerce by statutory enactments, could only be de- 
volved upon Congress, possessing all the other legislative 
powers of the government. The extraordinary power to re- 
gulate it by treaty, could not be devolved upon Congress, 
because from its composition, and the absence of all those 
authorities and functions which are essential to the activity 
and effect of a treaty-making power, it was not calculated 
to be the depository of it. It was wise and consistent to 
place the extraordinary power to regulate commerce by 
treaty, where the residue of the treaty-making power was 
placed, where only the means of negotiation could be found, 
and the skilful and beneficial use of them could reasonably 
be expected. 

That Congress legislates upon commerce, subject to the 
treaty-making iwiuer, is a position perfectly intelligible ; but 
the understanding is in some degree confounded by the other 
proposition, that the legislative power of Congress is an ex- 
ception out of the treaty-making power. It introduces into 
the constitution a strange anomaly — a commercial state, with 
a written constitution, and no power in it to regulate its 



348 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

trade, in conjunction with other states, in the universal mode 
of convention. It will be in vain to urge, that this anomaly 
is merely imaginary ; for that the President and Senate may 
make a treaty of commerce for the consideration of Con- 
gress. The answer is, that the treaties whicli the President 
and Senate are entitled to make, are such, as when made, 
become a law ; that it is no part of their functions simply 
to initiate treaties, but conclusively to make them ; and 
that where they have no power to make them, there is no 
provision in the constitution, how or by whom they shall be 
made. 

That there is nothing new in the idea of a separation of 
the legislative and conventional powers upon commercial 
subjects, and of the necessary control of the former by the 
latter, is known to all who are acquainted with the constitu- 
tion of England. The parliament of that country enacts 
the statutes by which its trade is regulated municipally. 
The crown modifies them by a treaty. It has been ima- 
gined, indeed, that parliament is in the practice of confirm- 
ing such treaties ; but the fact is undoubtedly otherwise. 
Commercial treaties are laid before parliament, because the 
king's ministers are responsible for their advice in the mak- 
ing of them, and because the vast range and complication of 
the English laws of trade and revenue, render legislation 
unavoidable, not for the ratification, but the execution of 
their commercial treaties. 

It is suggested, again, that the treaty-making power 
(unless we are tenants in common of it with the President 
and Senate, to the extent at least of our legislative rights) 
is a pestilent monster, pregnant with all sorts of disasters 1 
It teems with " Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire ! " 
At any rate, I may take for granted that the case before us 
does not justify this array of metaphor and fable ; since we 
are all agreed that the convention with England is not only 
harmless but salutary. To put this particular case, how- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 349 

ever, out of the argument, what have we to do with consi- 
derations like these ? are we here to form, or to submit to, 
the constitution as it has been given to us for a rule by 
those who are our masters ? Can we take upon ourselves 
the office of political casuists, and because we think that a 
power ought to be less than it is, compel it to shrink to our 
standard ? Are we to bow with reverence before the na- 
tional will as the constitution displays it, or to fashion it to 
our own, to quarrel with that charter, without which we 
ourselves are nothing ; or to take it as a guide Avhich we 
cannot desert with innocence and safety ? But why is the 
treaty-making power, lodged, as I contend it is, in the Pre- 
sident and Senate, likely to disaster us, as we are required 
to apprehend it will ? Sufficient checks have not, as it 
seems, been provided, either by the constitution or the na- 
ture of things, to prevent the abuse of it. It is in the 
House of Representatives alone, that the amulet, which bids 
defiance to the approaches of political disease^ or cures it 
when it has commenced, can in all vicissitudes be found. I 
hold that the checks are sufficient, without the charm of our 
legislative agency, for all those occasions which wisdom is 
bound to foresee and to guard against ; and that as to the 
rest (the eccentricities and portents which no ordinary 
checks can deal with) the occasions must provide for them- 
selves. 

It is natural, here, to ask of gentlemen, what security 
they would have ? They cannot " take a bond of Fate ; " 
and they have every pledge which is short of it. Have they 
not, as respects the President, all the security upon which 
they rely from day to day for the discreet and upright dis^ 
charge of the whole of his other duties, many and various as 
they are ? What security have they that he will not ap- 
point to office the refuse of the world ; that he will not pol- 
lute the sanctuary of justice by calling vagabonds to its holy 
ministry, instead of adorning it with men like those who 



350 LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNET. 

now give to the bench more dignity than they receive from 
it : that he will not enter into a treaty of amnesty with 
every consjiirator against law and order, and pardon culprits 
from mere enmity to virtue ? The security for all this, and 
infinitely more, is found in the constitution and in the or- 
der of nature ; and we are all satisfied with it. One should 
think that the same security, which thus far time has not 
discredited, might be sufficient to tranquillize us upon the 
score of the power which we are now considering. 

We talk of ourselves as if we only were the representa- 
tives of the people. But the first magistrate of this country 
is also the representative of the people, the creature of their 
sovereignty, the administrator of their power, their steward 
and servant, as you are — he comes from the people, is lifted 
by them into place and authority, and after a short season 
returns to them for censure or applause. There is no ana- 
logy between such a magistrate and the hereditary monarchs 
of Europe. He is not born to the inheritance of office ; he 
cannot even be elected until he has reached an age at which 
he must pass for what he is ; until his habits have been 
formed, his integrity tried, his capacity ascertained, his cha- 
racter discussed and probed for a series of years, by a press, 
which knows none of the restraints of European policy. He 
acts, as you do, in the full view of his constituents, and un- 
der the consciousness that on account of the singleness of his 
station, all eyes are upon him. He knows, too, as well as 
you can know, the temper and intelligence of those for 
whom he acts, and to whom he is amenable. He cannot 
hope that they will be blind to the vices of his administra- 
tion on subjects of high concernment and vital interest ; and 
in proportion as he acts upon his own responsibility, unre- 
lieved and undiluted by the infusion of ours, is the danger 
of ill-advised conduct likely to be present to his mind. 

Of all the powers which have been intrusted to him, 
there is none to which the temptations to abuse belong so 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 351 

little as to the treaty-making power in all its brandies ; 
none wliicli can boast such mighty safeguards in the feel- 
ings, and views, and passions which even a misanthrope 
could attribute to the foremost citizen of this republic. He 
can have no motive to palsy by a commercial or any other 
treaty the prosperity of his country. Setting apart the re- 
straints of honour and patriotism, wliich are the character- 
istic of public men in a nation habitually free, could he do 
so without subjecting himself as a member of the com- 
munity (to say nothing of his immediate connections) to the 
evils of liis own work ? A commercial treaty, too, is al- 
ways a conspicuous measure. It speaks for itself It can- 
not take the garb of hypocrisy, and shelter itself from the 
scrutiny of a vigilant and well instructed population. If it 
be bad, it will be condemned, and if dishonestly made, be 
execrated. The pride of country, moreover, which animates 
even the lowest of mankind, is here a peculiar pledge lor the 
provident and wholesome exercise of power. There is not a 
consideration by which a cord in the human breast can be 
made to vibrate that is not in this case the ally of duty. 
Every hope, either lofty or humble, that springs forward to 
the future ; even the vanity which looks not beyond the mo- 
ment ; the dread of shame and the love of glory ; the in- 
stinct of ambition ; the domestic atfections ; the cold pon- 
derings of prudence ; and the ardent instigations of senti- 
ment and passion, are all on the side of duty. It is in the 
exercise of this power that responsibility to public opinion, 
which even despotism feels and trucldes to, is of gigantic 
force. If it were possible, as I am sure it is not, that an 
American citizen, raised, upon the credit of a long life of 
virtue, to a station so full of honor, could feel a disposition 
to mingle the little interests of a perverted ambition with 
the great concerns of his country, as embraced by a com- 
mercial treaty, and to sacrifice her happiness and power by 
the stipulations of that treaty, to flatter ojj aggrandize a lb- 



352 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

reign state, he would still be saved from the perdition of 
such a course, not only by constitutional checks, but by the 
irresistible efficacy of responsibility to pubHc opinion, in a 
nation whose public opinion wears no mask, and will not be 
silenced. He would remember that his political career is 
but the thing of an hour, and that when it has passed he 
must descend to the private station from which he rose, the 
object either of love and veneration, or of scorn and horror. 
If we cast a glance at England, we shall not fail to see the 
influence of public opinion upon an hereditary king, an 
hereditary nobility, and a House of Commons elected in a 
great degree by rotten boroughs, and overflowing with place- 
men. And if this influence is potent there against all the 
efibrts of independent power and wide spread corruption, it 
must in this country be omnipotent. 

But the treaty-making power of the President is further 
checked by the necessity of the concurrence of two-thirds of 
the Senate, consisting of men selected by the legislatures of 
the States, themselves elected by the people. They too 
must have passed through the probation of time before they 
can be chosen, and must bring with them every title to con- 
fidence. The duration of their office is that of a few years ; 
their numbers are considerable ; their constitutional respon- 
sibility as great as it can be ; and their moral responsibility 
beyond all calculation. 

The power of imjjeachment has been mentioned as a 
check upon the President in the exercise of the treaty-mak- 
ing capacity. I rely upon it less than uj)on others, of, as I 
think, a better class ; but as the constitution places some re- 
liance upon it, so do I. It has been said, that impeachment 
has been tried and found wanting. Two impeachments have 
foiled, as I have understood, (that of a judge was one) — but 
they may have failed for reasons consistent with the general 
efficacy of such a proceeding. I know nothing of their merits, 
but I am justifie(i in supposing that the evidence was defec- 



LIFE OP WILLIAM PINKNEY. 353 

tive, or that the parties were innocent as they were pro- 
nounced to he : — Of this, however, I feel assured, tliat if it 
should ever happen tliat the President' is found to deserve 
the punishment which impeachment seeks to inflict, (even 
for making a treaty to which the judges have hecome parties,) 
and this hody should accuse him in a constitutional way, he 
will not easily escape. But, he that as it may, I ask if it is 
nothing that you have power to arraign him as a culprit ? 
Is it nothing that you can bring him to the bar, expose his 
misconduct to the world, and bring down the indignation of 
the public upon him and those who dare to acquit him ? 

If there be any power explicitly granted by the constitu- 
tion to Congress, it is that of declaring war ; and if there be 
any exercise of human legislation more solemn and important 
than another, it is a declaration of war. For expansion it is 
the largest, for effect the most awful of all the enactments 
to which Congress is competent ; and it always is, or ought 
to be, preceded by grave and anxious deliberation. This 
power, too, is connected with, or virtually involves, others of 
high import and efficacy; among which may be ranked the 
power of granting letters of marque and reprisal, of regulat- 
ing captures, of prohibiting intercourse with, or the accept- 
ance of protections or licenses from the enemy. Yet farther; 
a power to declare war implies, with peculiar emphasis, a 
negative upon all power, in any other branch of the govern- 
ment, inconsistent with the full and continuing effect of it. A 
power to make peace in any other branch of the government, 
is utterly inconsistent with that full and continuing effect. 
It may even prevent it from having any effect at all ; since 
peace may follow almost immediately (although it rarely does 
so follow) the commencement of a war. If, therefore, it be 
undeniable that the President, with the advice and consent 
of the Senate, has power to make a treaty of peace, available 
ipso Jure, it is undeniable that he has power to repeal, by 
the mere operation of such a treaty, the highest acts of con- 
23 



354 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

gressional legislation. And it will not be questioned that 
this repealing power is, from the eminent nature of the war- 
declaring power, less fit to be made out by inference than 
the power of modifying by treaty the laws which regulate 
our foreign trade. Now the President, with the advice and 
consent of the Senate, has an incontestable and uncontested 
right to make a treaty of peace, of absolute inherent efficacy, 
and that too in virtue of the very same general provision in 
the constitution which the refinements of political speculation, 
rather than any known rules of construction, have led some 
of us to suppose excludes a treaty of commerce. 

By what process of reasoning will you be able to extract 
from the Avide field of that general provision the obnoxious 
case of a commercial treaty, without forcing along with it 
the case of a treaty of peace, and along with that again the 
case of every possible treaty ? Will you rest your distinction 
upon the favorite idea that a treaty cannot repeal laws com- 
petently enacted, or, as it is sometimes expressed, cannot 
trench upon the legislative rights of Congress ? Such a dis- 
tinction not only seems to be reproached by all the theories, 
numerous as they are, to which this bill has given birth, but 
is against notorious fact and recent experience. We have 
lately Avitnessed the oj)eration in this respect of a treaty of 
peace, and could not fail to draw from it this lesson ; that 
no sooner does the President exert, with the consent of the 
Senate, his power to make such a treaty, than your war-de- 
nouncing law, your act for letters of marque, your prohibit- 
ory statutes as to intercourse and licenses, and all the other 
concomitant and dependent statutes, so far as they afiect the 
national relations with a foreign enemy, pass away as a dream, 
and in a moment are ' with years beyond the flood.' Your 
auxiliary agency was not required in the production of this 
effect ; and I have not heard that you even tendered it. You 
saw your laws departing as it were from the statute books, 
expelled from the strong hold of supremacy by the single 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 355 

force of a treaty of peace ; and you did not attempt to stay 
them ; you did not bid them linger until you should bid them 
go ; you neither put your shoulders to the wheel of ex})ulsion 
nor made an etibrt to retard it. In a word, you did nothing. 
You suflered them to flee as a shadow, and you know that 
they were reduced to shadow, not by the necromancy of 
usurpation, but by the energy of constitutional power. Yet, 
you had every reason for interference then which you can 
have now. The power to make a treaty of peace stands upon 
the same constitutional footing with the power to make a 
commercial treaty. It is given by tlie same words. It is 
exerted in the same manner. It produces the same conflict 
with municipal legislation. The ingenuity of man cannot 
urge a consideration, whether upon the letter or the spirit of 
the constitution, against the existence of a power in the Pres- 
ident and Senate to make a valid commercial treaty, which 
will not, if it be correct and sound, drive us to the negation 
of the power exercised by the President and Senate, with 
universal approbation, to make a valid treaty of peace. 

Nay, the whole treaty-making power will be blotted from 
the constitution, and a new one, alien to its theory and prac- 
tice, be made to supplant it, if sanction and scope be given 
to the principles of this bill. This bill may indeed be con- 
sidered as the first of many assaults, not now intended per- 
haps, but not therefore the less likely to happen, by which 
the treaty-making power, as created and lodged by the con- 
stitution, will be pushed from its place, and compelled to 
abide with the power of ordinary legislation. The example 
of this bni is beyond its ostensible limits. The pernicious 
principle, of which it is at once the child and the apostle, 
must work onward and to the right and the left until it has 
exhausted itself ; and it never can exhaust itself until it has 
gathered into the vortex of the legislative powers of Con- 
gress the whole treaty-making capacity of the government. 
For if, notwithstanding the directness and precision with 



356 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

which the constitution has marked out the department of the 
government by which it wills that treaties shall be made, and 
has declared that treaties so made shall have the force and 
dignity of law, the House of Kepresentatives can insist upon 
some participation in that high faculty, upon the simple 
suggestion that they are sharers in legislative power upon 
the subjects embraced by any given treaty, what remains to 
be done, for the transfer to Congress of the entire treaty- 
making faculty, as it appears in the constitution, but to show 
that Congress have legislative power direct or indirect upon 
every matter which a treaty can touch ? And what are the 
matters within the practicable range of a treaty, which your 
laws cannot either mould, or qualify, or influence ? Imagi- 
nation has been tasked for example, by which this question 
might be answered. It is admitted that they must be few, 
and we have been told, as I think, of no more than one. It 
is the case of contraband of loar. This case has, it seems, 
the double recommendation of being what is called an inter- 
national case, and a case beyond the utmost gras]) of congres- 
sional legislation. I remark upon it, that it is no more an 
international case than any matter of collision incident to 
the trade of two nations with each other. I remark farther, 
that a treaty upon the point of contraband of war may in- 
terfere, as well as any other treaty, with an act of Congress. 
A law encouraging, by a bounty or otherwise, the exporta- 
tion of certain commodities, would be counteracted by an 
insertion into the list of contraband of war, in a treaty with 
England or France, any one of those commodities. The 
treaty would look one way, the law another. And various 
modes might readily be suggested in which Congress might 
so legislate as to lay the foundation of repugnancy between 
its laws and the treaties of the President and Senate with 
reference to contraband. I deceive myself greatly if a sub- 
ject can be named upon wliich a like repugnancy might not 
occur. But even if it should be practicable to furnish, after 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 357 

laborious inquiry and meditation, a meagre and scanty in- 
ventory of some half dozen topics, to which domestic legisla- 
tion cannot be made to extend, will it be pretended that 
such was the insignificant and narrow domain designed by 
the constitution for the treaty-making power ? It would 
appear that there is with some gentlemen a willingness to 
distinguish between the legislative power expressly granted 
to Congress and that which is merely implied, and to admit 
that a treaty may control the results of the latter. I reply 
to those gentlemen that one legislative power is exactly 
equivalent to another, and that, moreover, the whole legisla- 
tive power of Congress may justly be said to be expressly 
granted by the constitution, although the constitution does 
not enumerate every variety of its exercise, or indicate all the 
ramifications into which it may diverge to suit the exigencies 
of the times. I reply, besides, that even with the qualifica- 
tion of this vague distinction, whatever may be its value or 
effect, tlie principle of the bill leaves no adequate sphere for 
the treaty-making power. I reply, finally, that the ac- 
knowledged operation of a treaty of peace in repealing laws 
of singular strength and unbending character, enacted in 
virtue of powers communicated in tertninis to Congress, gives 
the distinction to the winds. 

And now that I have again adverted to the example of a 
treaty of peace, let me call upon you to reflect on the an- 
swer which that example affords to all the warnings we have 
received in this debate against the mighty danger of intrust- 
ing to the only department of the government, wliicli the 
constitution supposes can make a treaty, the incidental pre- 
rogative of a repealing legislation. It is inconsistent, we 
are desired to believe, with the genius of the constitution, 
and must be fatal to all that is dear to freemen, that an Ex- 
ecutive magistrate and a Senate, who are not immediately 
elected by the peojile, should possess this authority. We 
hear from one quarter that if it be so, the public hberty is 



358 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

already in tlie grave ; and from another, that the pubhc in- 
terest and honor are upon the verge of it. But do you not 
perceive that this picture of calamity and shame is the mere 
figment of excited fancy, disavowed by the constitution as 
hysterical, and erroneous in the case of a treaty of peace ? 
Do you not see that if there be any thing in this high co- 
lored peril, it is a treaty of peace that must reahze it ? 
Can we in this view compare with the j)ower to make such a 
treaty, that of making a treaty of commerce ? Are we 
unable to conjecture, while we are thus brooding over antici- 
pated evils which can never happen, that the lofty character 
of our country (which is but another name for strength and 
power) may be made to droop by a mere treaty of peace ; 
that the national pride may be humbled ; the just hopes of 
the people blasted ; their courage tamed and broken ; their 
prosperity struck to the heart ; their foreign rivals encour- 
aged into arrogance and tutored into encroachment, by a 
mere treaty of peace ? I confidently trust that, as this 
never has been so, it will never be so ; but surely it is just 
as possible as that a treaty of commerce should ever be made 
to shackle the freedom of this nation, or check its march to 
the greatness and glory that await it. I know not, indeed, 
how it can seriously be thought that oar liberties are in 
hazard from the small witchery of a treaty of commerce, 
and yet in none from the potent enchantments by which a 
treaty of peace may strive to enthral them. I am at a loss to 
conceive by what form of words, by what hitherto unheard- 
of stipulations, a commercial treaty is to barter away the 
freedom of United America, or of any the smallest portion 
of it. I cannot figure to myself the possibility that such a 
project can ever find its way into the head or heart of any 
man, or set of men, whom this nation may select as the 
depositories of its power ; but I am quite sure that an at- 
tempt to insert such a project in a commercial treaty, or in 
any other treaty, or in any other mode, could work no other 



LIFE OF WILLIAM TINKNEY. 359 

effect than the destruction of those who should venture to 
be parties to it, no matter whether a President, Senate, or a 
whole Congress. Many extreme cases have been put for illus- 
tration in this debate ; and this is one of them ; and I take 
the occasion which it offers to mention, that to argue from 
extreme cases is seldom logical, and upon a question of inter- 
pretation, never so. We can only bring back the means of 
delusion, if we wander into the regions of fiction, and ex- 
plore the wilds of bare possibility in search of rules for real 
life and actual ordinary cases. By arguing from the possible 
abuse of power against the use or existence of it, you may 
and must come to the conclusion, that there ought not be, 
and is not, any government in this country, or in the world. 
Disorganization and anarchy are the sole consequences that 
can be deduced from such reasoning. Who is it that may not 
abuse the power that has been confided to him .? May not 
loe, as well as the other branches-of the government ? And 
if we may, does not the argument from extreme cases 
prove that we ought to have no power, and that we 
have no jjower ? And does it not, therefore, after hav- 
ing served for an instant the purposes of this bill, turn 
short upon and condemn its whole theory, which attri- 
butes to us, not merely the power which is our own, but 
inordinate power, to be gained only by wresting it from 
others ? Our constitutional and moral security against the 
abuses of the power of the executive government have al- 
ready been explained. I will only add, that a great and ma- 
nifest abuse of the delegated authority to make treaties would 
create no obligation any where. If ever it should occur, as I 
confidently believe it never will, the e\dl must find its cor- 
rective in the wisdom and iii'mness, not of this body only, 
but of the whole body of the people co-operating with it. 
It is, after all, in the people, upon whose Atlantean shoul- 
ders our whole republican system reposes, that you must ex- 
pect that recuperative power, that redeeming and regenerat- 



360 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

ing spirit, by which the constitution is to be purified and 
redintegrated when extravagant abuse has cankered it. 

In addition to the example of a treaty of peace which I 
have just been considering, let me put another, of which 
none of us can question the reality. The President may 
exercise the power of pardoning, save only in the case of im- 
peachments. The power of pardoning is not communicated 
by words more precise or comprehensive than the power to 
make treaties. But to what does it amount .^ Is not every 
pardon, pro liac vice, a repeal of the penal law against 
which it gives protection ? Does it not ride over the law, 
resist its command, and extinguish its effect .? Does it not 
even control the combined force of judicature and legisla- 
tion .^ Yet, have we ever heard that your legislative rights 
were an exception out of the prerogative of mercy ? Who 
has ever pretended that this faculty cannot, if regularly ex- 
erted, wrestle with the strongest of your statutes .^ I may 
be told, that the pardoning power necessarily imports a con- 
trol over the penal code, if it be exercised in the form of a 
pardon. I answer, the power to make treaties equally im- 
ports a power to put out of the way such parts of the civil 
code as interfere with its operation, if that power be exerted 
in the form of a treaty. There is no difference in their es- 
sence. You legislate, in both cases, subject to the power. 
And this instance furnishes another answer, as I have already 
intimated, to the predictions of abuse, with which, on this 
occasion, it has been endeavored to appal us. The pardoning 
power is in the President alone. He is not even checked by 
the necessity of Senatorial concurrence. He may by his 
single fiat extract the sting from your proudest enactments 
— and save from their vengeance a convicted offender. 

Sir, you have my general notions upon the bill before 
you. They have no claim to novelty. I imbibed them from 
some of the heroes and sages who survived the storm of that 
contest to which America was summoned in her cradle. I 



LIFE OF WILLIAM TINKNEY. 361 

imbibed them from the father of his country. My under- 
standing approved them, with the full concurrence of my 
heart, when I was much younger than I am now ; and I 
feel no disposition to discard them, now that age and feeble- 
ness are about to overtake me. I could say more — much 
more — upon this high question ; but I want health and 
strength. It is, perhaps, fortunate for the House that I do ; 
as it prevents me from fatiguing them as much as I fatigue 
myself 

I have searched in vain for the authorship of the " Political 
Sketches," or even a sight of the book. There is a vague 
impression on my mind, that it was the production of one of 
our northern stars. But whoever the author may be, or what 
may have become of the work, the following remarks will 
reward perusal. It is a most masterly dissertation on style ; 
singularly rich, discriminating and profound. Elevated above 
the asperity of captious criticism by a nice and accurate per- 
ception of true beauty and force, it is a jewel of its kind. 
For imagination in its highest form and noblest development 
Mr. Pinkney possessed the most unbounded admiration, and 
gave to the country and the world the most perfect and ex 
quisite illustration of it. But for it, in its uncurbed irreg- 
ularity and mystical dreamings, he expressed, as he felt, the 
most unmixed disgust and contempt. 

It must not be supposed that Mr. Pinkney, in the close 
of this article, designed to intimate that Dr. Johnson wrote 
with dMculty, for no one knew better than he the actual ra- 
pidity with which he wrote ; but only to reaffirm what John- 
son said of himself, "that whenever he said a good thing he 
seemed to labor." Dr. Johnson, speaking of Addison, used 
to say that he was the Raphael of essay writers. 



362 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 



REMARKS ON "POLITICAL SKETCHES.' 

BY WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

When I first perused this valuable performance, I con- 
demned it without hesitation, as a work wherein the imagi- 
nation had been permitted to flutter at large, unaccompa- 
nied by the judgment. I thought the great subject of the 
author's consideration lightly and gracefully handled ; and 
the remarks he has bestowed on Montesquieu, at the end of 
his section on Virtue, more properly applicable to himself 
He appeared to me far more solicitous to please his reader by 
a labored floridity of style, and a succession of gay images, 
than to enlighten the understanding, by accuracy of thought 
and justness of conception. 

But upon a more attentive perusal of his work, I am 
thorouo;hlv convinced of its merits. As far as I am able to 
decide, it discovers a clear discriminating head — a solidity of 
reflection — an acquaintance with history, men, and the prin- 
ciples of government, and an animated fancy. It is not how- 
ever without faults. Want of originaUty is apparent in the 
two sections of Virtue and Religion. Again ; the author's 
meaning is often so concealed by a redundancy of uncommon 
and figurative expressions, that it is accessible to none, but 
those geniuses whom Johnson speaks of, who " grasp a sys- 
tem by intuition," except through the medium of unremitted 
application. Perspicuity is frequently sacrificed to that anx- 
iety which is natural to a young writer, of strewing over his 
subject with the flowers of rhetoric, and embelhshing reflec- 
tion with the graces of expression. The tinsel of Lexiphanic 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 363 

language in many places involves his argument in almost in- 
extricable mystery, and pains whom it was intended to please, 
by making them toil for instruction, when an easy, natural 
communication was practicable. To be learnedly incompre- 
hensible was certainly not the author's intention. He wrote 
to be admired, but he wrote also to be understood. The 
cool approbation which is given to solidity of thought, could 
not content him. He sought by splendid imageiy to gain 
that tribute of approbation from the heart, which is given 
to the warm glow of rhetoric. But nothing more complete- 
ly removes an argument from the reach of general compre- 
hension, than what is commonly, though falsely called, an 
elegance of diction. Paradoxically as it may sound, its very 
lustre is the parent of darkness. By fascinating the imagi- 
nation it monopolizes the attention, and the plain simplicity 
of truth, surrounded by the dazzhng glitter of a highly col- 
ored style escapes the eye of observation. In works of mere 
entertainment, the impropriety of this species of writing in 
some measure ceases ; but surely to support a train of rea- 
soning in such a manner as to oblige a majority of readers to 
apply almost every moment to a dictionary, upon a question, 
too, where the nicety of discrimination is necessary at every 
turn, to destroy apparent analogies — where the under- 
standing (independent of the obstacles thrown in its way by 
perplexing figures and unusual words) can with difficulty 
pursue the chain of reflection ; and where, in the combined 
consideration of human nature, facts, and principles, the con- 
clusions must be embarrassed rather than illustrated, if not 
perspicuously treated — is at least impolitic in him who seeks 
to lead the mind to information and conviction. 

In the world of taste, the plain simple language of Ad- 
dison has been preferred to that of the Rambler. The 
periods of the last impress us with the painful idea of labor • 
and give us a disagreeable conception of a tedious process by 



364 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

which every sentence was tortured into form. I would ap- 
ply the same remark to the Political Sketches. 

When the ardor of our author's fancy shall have cooled 
by time — when his notions of a writer's true reputation 
shall have become juster — when he shall have learned to 
prefer that style which explains his subject, instead of plung- 
ing it into obscurity ; and when he shall be convinced that to 
bury the matter of his discussion beneath a profusion of 
gaudy trappings, is only the affectation of elegance, he will 
in all probability be among the first ornaments of the Uter- 
ary world, and do honor to his country and himself. 



I come now to consider the character of Mr. Pinkney as 
a man ; to sum up with an impartial and truthful pen those 
moral and intellectual qualities that united to make him an 
ornament of society. 

His personal appearance possessed a goodly degree of 
dignity and grace. Tall and finely formed, with a head ex- 
quisitely shaped, forehead high, broad, massive and slightly 
retreating, eyes of the softest blue, rather heavy in repose, 
but capable of the intensest and most varied expression 
when roused in the excitement of debate, a mouth of un- 
common sweetness and flexibility, soft brown hair, scarcely 
tinged with gray when death laid him low, and a character- 
istic neatness and elegance of address — he was a man re- 
markable to look upon. It is almost amusing to glance at 
the caricature of him published many years ago in the " North 
American," and one can only smile in wonder at the 
strange want of resemblance it exhibits. 

Affable in the immediate circle of his friends, he was 
rather inaccessible to strangers. He was never very talk- 
ative ; and yet when disengaged and not too much abstract- 
ed by press of business, he was the life and light of society. 

On such occasions his wit sparkled and flashed, giving to 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 365 

his conversation a nameless and indescribable cliarm, not 
unlike intellectual fascination. His very taciturnity gave to 
his colloquial powers, when he chose to exercise them, a 
more remarkable and striking effect. He was a great ad- 
mirer of ladies, and always paid a marked tribute of respect 
to that refinement and elegance of taste and intuitive per- 
ception, which constitute at once the beauty and marvel of 
the female character. No one knew better than he how to 
draw out its pecuhar powers, and elicit to advantage its 
finer and softer sensibilities. During his frequent visits to 
Annapolis, he loved to while away an hour of the evening in 
an old mansion, which was the home o£ elegance and the 
chief centre of attraction, the residence of the late Mrs. 

L , a lady of whom it were impossible to speak 

without seeming exaggeration, whose loveliness of character 
was only equalled by her vigor of intellect and suavity of 
manners — who in life was the honored companion of the 
young and the old ; and at whose funeral the legislature of 
Maryland considered it a sad privilege to walk as mourners. 
For this lady, and the circle of beauty and intelligence that 
was ever congregated around her, Mr. Pinkney entertained 
the most unbounded admiration ; and on more than one oc- 
casion of public interest, in the discussion of the forum, did 
he exhibit his sense of her presence by a display of eloquence 
which he knew she could both appreciate and understand. 
He never presumed to talk nonsense to ladies, or lowered 
himself, as some great men are wont to do, to the supposed 
measure of their ability, for he was one of those who be- 
lieved them to be in all respects, by character, education, 
and intellect, worthy of the companionship of those who are 
so much dependant upon them for sympathy and support. 
He had without doubt formed his opinion of the mind and 
heart of woman from the noblest specimen ; and knew by 
early experience that there was nothing too abstruse or sub- 
lime for the one to grasp, or too magnanimous, exalted, or 



366 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

ennobling for the other to embrace. Believing them to be 
capable of the highest intellectual enjoyment, and eminently 
skilled in intellectual taste, he conversed with them as 
equals ; and his conversation was on that account peculiarly 
attractive and instructive. He often expressed the opinion, 
that no great man ever lived, who had not a highly intel- 
lectual and clear-headed mother. Of one of the ladies of 
his acquaintance now living (with whom he corresponded 
when abroad), he was accustomed to say, that her letters 
gave him more real pleasure and delight, than those received 
from any other source. The letters which passed between 
them were for a kng time in the possession of my own fa- 
mily ; and were a truly brilliant passage of arms, in which 
grace and beauty triumphed on either side. They were, 
however, lost, to the regret of the author of this memoir. 

He was singularly free from the spirit of detraction. 
Tender of the feelings and motives of others, he seldom, if 
ever, permitted any thing of the sort to jjass by without re- 
buke. In the company of the young, especially, who are too 
liable to be betrayed into sarcastic and ill-natured com- 
ment upon the conduct of others, he was ever ready to 
pour oil on the troubled waters, and vindicate the aspersed, 
or at all events silence and confound the asperser. 

He possessed very high veneration for consistent and 
humble piety. Well versed in the best old Church of England 
theology, and accustomed to hold frequent and delighted 
converse with Hooker, Taylor, et id omne genus, he was pe- 
culiarly clear in his views of its true character. On one oc- 
casion, illustrative of this high veneration for all that was 
pure and holy, and this aversion to disparaging comment, 
when seated at a festive board in the city of Annapolis, a 
young member of the bar chanced to mention the insanity of 
a lady of distinction, and as a proof conclusive of the fact, 
stated that she was running into all the lanes and alleys of 
Baltimore, and ferreting out objects of charity from among 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 367 

their filthy and wretched inmates. Mr. Pinkuey turned 
and said, with one of his sweetest smiles, and in a tone of 
most melting pathos, " what a beautiful combination of mo- 
ral virtues to constitute mental derangement, piety towards 
God, and benevolence towards man." The only criticism, 
said a lady to me, who often went with him to public wor- 
ship, I ever remember to have heard him make was, " praise 
that sermon if you dare." 

He was a stanch friend ; although in the selection of a 
friend, he followed the rule so beautifully and forcibly laid 
down by Shakspeare : 

" The friends thou hast and their adoption tried, 
Grapple them to thj' soul with hooks of steel, 
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment 
Of each new hatched unfledged comrade." 

Hamlet. 

His sensibilities were singularly warm for a man of re- 
serve. His heart beat responsive to the touch of kindness. 
His zeal in the service of those he loved knew no bounds. 
His eloquence and legal learning were not unfrequently 
poured forth in pleading their cause and defending their 
rights and honor ; and the offering was made altogether 
without the hope or the acceptance of reward. A gentleman, 
not now living, who lost a suit in chancery which involved 
his all, as he supposed, because of some incidental expression 
of Mr. Pinkney, went to him ; and he told me that he en- 
tered immediately with all his heart and soul into the in- 
vestigation, and never rested until he had reversed the deci- 
sion of the court below, and established him in the full pos- 
session of his lost estate, and would never hear of the least 
compensation. It was a friend's claim upon his sympathy 
in a cause he knew to be just, and the only remuneration he 
could or would receive, separate and above the pleasure of 
the deed, was gratitude for the service rendered. The au- 
dience were in tears, no eye was dry, while a friend's voice 



368 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

was uplifted in tlie defence of a friend's rights. There are wit- 
nesses to the truth of this simple fact, now alive, whose tes- 
timony could be invoked were it necessary. This was by no 
means an uncommon occurrence. One of the most powerful 
and touching speeches he ever delivered before a jury was in 
defence of a near relative of a lady with whom he boarded ; 
and long will the echoes of that memorable effort live in the 
memory of those who heard it. Upper Marlborough was the 
place, a jury of Prince George's County the arbiters, and the 
tears of a lone widow restored to the embrace of one she 
loved, the only reward of the eloquent advocate. This kind- 
ness of disposition and warmth of friendship were exhibited 
in behalf of the poor and uninfluential more readily^ than 
those whom it might appear to be politic to defend. 

One of the strongest proofs of the warmth and genero- 
sity of his feelings is furnished in the fact, that he never 
forfeited a friendship he once learned to honor and trust. 
With Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, he continued on terms 
of the closest intimacy and confidence. The following ex- 
tract, from a letter written just before his final return to the 
country and but a short time before his death, will show in 
what light the last continued to regard him ; and there were 
few men living, who had a better opportunity of knowing 
and understanding Mr. Pinkney's character : — 

" I pray you be assured that I view your forbearing to 
name me for the court of England exactly as you do, and 
that I rejoice you took that course. It would certainly have 
been hazardous, and moreover, I had no wish to go to Eng- 
land, or to remain any longer abroad. The ofiice of Attor- 
ney-G-eneral would not have suited me, as I have some time 
since taken measures for resuming my residence in Balti- 
more, where I hope to retrieve the losses, which my missions 
could not fail to inflict upon me in a pecuniary sense ; but 
they have been incurred in the public service, and if Pro- 
vidence spares and assists me will not long be felt. Your 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 369 

friendly wishes are really invaluable. I do not want office, 
but I highly prize your esteem. 

" Notwithstanding my anxiety to get home, I shall quit 
this station with some regret. .They have been very kind to 
me here. My place will doubtless be supplied by a man 
much more able and distinguished, and at the same time of 
equal discretion." 

This letter was written from St. Petersburg, where Mr. 
Pinkney was highly esteemed. 

Although not indiscriminate in his friendships, where his 
heart was given, it was the heart in its fulness, warm, gush- 
ing, simple and confiding as a child's. To both the friends 
and the scenes of his early youth, he turned with undimin- 
ished interest and pleasure in the close of his brilliant 
career. 

He was an affectionate husband and fetlier ; and evinced 
the greatest anxiety to promote the welfare of his children in 
every way possible. He had noble views on the subject of 
education. I have it in my power to present those views to 
the public, for the first time, in a letter written by him to 
my father. It contains the veiy breathings of his soul, and 
possesses an additional vahie, viz., that it was intended 
solely for the eye of a brother's sympathy, from whom he 
concealed nothing, and was never designed for publication. 
It is just what he thought on a subject of the most absorb- 
ing interest. 



MR. PINKNEY TO HIS BROTHER NINIAN. 

" London, 1st June, 1800. 

" Dear Ninian, — Your Last letter has given me great 
hopes of William. If I should be disappointed in regard to 
him, I shaU feel it severely, and I shall certainly form my 
judgment of him impartially when I return. We are some- 
times disposed to think too favorably of our own, and to 
24 



370 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

permit our understandings to be blinded by our affections. 
I am not of that tenii^er. He will find me able to deter- 
mine accurately of his progress, without being biassed by a 
parent's fondness, to imagine excellence where it does not 
exist. I have perfect confidence, however, that he will not 
need this sort of bias. On your care of him (for which I 
cannot be too grateful), I have implicit reliance that you 
will give him sound principles, both by your instruction and 
example ; that you will incite him to early habits of honor- 
able thinking and manly feeling ; that you wijl teach him 
that the whole complexion of his future life depends upon 
his boyish years ; that you will inspire him with that just 
ambition, which, having excellence for its object, is the best 
security for its attainment ; that you will impress upon his 
mind the indispensable necessity of regular application and 
systematic industry as the only sure aids of talent where it 
exists, and the only effectual substitute for it where it is 
wanting ; and in a word, that you will form him to know- 
ledge aad virtue, with skill and attention equal, if not su- 
perior, to my own, I have no doubt. There are, indeed, 
some things in the education of a boy which men are apt to 
Neglect, but which, I trust, you will think too important to 
be slighted. I mean certain principles, moral and religious, 
which we allow ourselves to refer to the future, in the hope 
that they will grow up of themselves or be acquired as the 
mind advances to maturity. A mother teaches them in in- 
fancy, and stamps them upon the heart, not by formal lec- 
tures, but by reiterated admonition or reproof, as occasions 
present themselves. Among those principles the detestable 
nature of a falsehood deserves to be strongly inculcated. 
This is a subject upon which half mankind are casuists ; but 
I would not have my son among this class of moralists — with 
the great and essential truths of religion, the outline of the 
Christian creed, and the prominent duties involved in it, a 
boy cannot be too soon possessed. I would have my son in 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 371 

early life instructed, to avoid the fashionable infidelity of the 
times. I would have him reared in the bosom of a faith, by 
whicli no man wa^evcr made worse, and all may liopc to be 
made better : a sound and rational piety (the surest warrant 
of happiness in this tvorld as well as in the next) is rarely 
to be expected, unless it be the result of instruction com- 
menced when the mind is susceptible of deep impressions, 
and continued till they are firmly fixed. The fanatic is 
usually a recent convert to mystical doctrines he does not 
understand ; and the sceptic in religion too often owes the 
doubts that torment him to the unpardonable negligence of 
those to whose care his childhood was confided. 

" I know it is unnecessary to write thus to you ; but you 
will place what I have said to the account of my anxiety for 
this boy's welfare, and excuse it. 

" I have nothing to add to this scrawl, worth the writing. 
The French have opened the campaign on the Rhine with bril- 
liant success ; and in Italy, the early prosperity of the Aus- 
trians seems likely to end in defeat and ruin. A friend to 
the peace of the world knows not to which side he should 
give his wishes. The ambitious views of the Emperor of 
Germany &c., &c., are little better than those of republican 
France. 

" Each party is tolerably honest in adversity, and be- 
comes the reverse in the hour of triumph. Americans should 
learn to be the partisans of neither. I beg you to be as- 
sured that I think of you always with true affection. 

" P.S.— Is^ July, 1800.— I have kept this letter for the 
purpose of sending it by * "^'•' * who has remained here 
longer than was expected. 

" You will see by the public pajDcrs that my conjecture 
as to the result of the campaign in Italy was correct, al- 
though at that time the general opinion was rather the other 
way. The overthrow of the Austrians is signal and decisive. 
Nothing could be more absolute and complete. The Em- 



372 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

peror will now be driven to make jieace, and Bonaparte of- 
fers it to him in the hour of success and triumph, and doubt- 
less with sincerity. This country must follow the example 
of Austria." 

The campaign on the Khine has hitherto been manifestly 
subservient to that of Italy, but it seems already to assume a 
more active character, and if peace does not speedily inter- 
pose the Austrian s under ^ray will experience a fate similar 
to those under Melas. Such a constellation of military 
talent has seldom (if ever) been seen as may •now be found 
in the French armies and at the head of French affairs. It 
is to this circumstance that have been principally owing the 
splendid events in Italy and the masterly though less active 
0]jerations in Germany. That Kray and Melas have been 
outgeneralled is universally admitted. The precise co-opera- 
tion between the two French armies, although so far apart, 
towards the accomplishment of one object, is a proof, if any 
was wanting, of the superior intelligence of those by whom 
their movements were planned and conducted. 

" We hear nothing of our commissioners at Paris. It is 
believed that they are going on well ; but with what speed 
(although I hear from Murray now and then) we are ignorant. 

" You are likely I perceive to have a contest for Pres- 
ident and Vice-President. So far removed as I am, I ought 
to abstain from aU interference on the subject ; but I must 
express an opinion that Mr, Adams's administration has been, 
in the main, wise and proper. So far as I have been able 
to judge of the leading measures of his administration they 
have been politic and just in substance. That some of them 
should create clamor was to be expected — and this must be 
looked for let who will be President. 

" Mr. Adams has done nothing to deserve to be discarded. 
He came into power at a very dehcate crisis, and the 
dehcacy of that crisis was much increased by the circumstance 
of his having General Washington for his immediate and 



LIFE OF -WILLIAM PIIfKNEY. 373 

only predecessor in office. Slight errors should be overlooked 
in a man who means well, and who has acted essentially right 
in situations peculiarly arduous and embarrassing." 

This letter abounds in wise and judicious sentiments. It 
is a faithful transcript of his paternal feehngs, and will secure 
for him the thanks of all, who are themselves concerned for 
the proper training of their children. 

Mr. Pinkney was too severe a student to mingle much in 
general society. His practice was too extensive to admit of 
much recreation. Duty triumphed over the yearnings of a 
social disposition ; and pleasure with him was always made 
secondary to duty. But still at home, in the privacy of his 
own hearthstone, or abroad, in the centre of society, he was 
the finished gentleman, and contributed all in his power to the 
pleasure and entertainment of those around him. Never, as 
many can testify, did tlic charm of his eloquence or the 
salient vigor of his intellect appear more fascinating, than 
in the presence of a friendship he loved and trusted. 

He was a man of elegant hospitality, and always welcomed 
to his board those who chose to share in its conviviality. He 
knew not the love of money, and nothing gave him truer de- 
light than to shower it down in blessings on the pathway of 
others. 

His favorite literary works are not known. But that he 
delighted especially in Shakespeare, Milton, Addison and 
Johnson, is well known. The former he never tired in read- 
ing, and thoroughly comprehended. Perfectly at home in all 
the polite literature of the mother country, and extensively 
and critically read in the poets, he was admirably qualified 
to appreciate that sjjlendid monument of wise and judicious 
criticism, " The Lives of the Poets," and detect its faults. 
The copy now in my possession afibrds abundant proof of both 
the pleasure and care with which he read. 

The Bible he was accustomed to regard not only as the 
word of God, but as the very first of literary works ; incom- 



374 LIFE (S? WILLIAM PINKNET. 

parably above and beyond them all, of ancient or modem 
times. He studied it closely, and his mind teemed with 
its beauties. Hooker was also an "especial favorite, particu- 
larly his magnificent first book. He loved the Church of 
England, and esteemed its theologians perfect masters of 
style and matter. 

He was fond of his pencil, and often sketched for the 
amusement and gratification of his children — and singular 
to state, his sketches were executed with the skill of a mas- 
ter, and only wanted the aid of experience to entitle them to 
the highest rank in artistic excellence. He was passionately 
fond of nature, and loved to revel in its beauties. In the 
very trees and flowers he found a sort of companionship. On 
one occasion, illustrative of this ardent attachment for ex- 
ternal nature, he observed that a favorite tree, one of the 
monarchs of the forest, had been cut down, and it stirred his 
soul to the highest degree of eloquent rebuke. He inveighed 
against the deed, and in his own expressive language affirmed 
"that the growth of centuries was ever venerable." 

His recreation was walking and hunting. Of the latter 
he was particularly fond. There was an excitement about 
it congenial to his ardent temperament. He was a capital 
shot, and was capable of great endurance. He was a man of 
heart in every thing he undertook. His soul was in his 
business and his pleasures, his study and his pastime. He 
did nothing languidly. Enthusiastic and aspiring, he strove 
to excel in every thing he attempted. 

He was a man of the nicest sense of honor. Trath was 
the grace he was most ambitious to exhibit in all his inter- 
course with his fellow men. A gentleman now residing in 
New-York, whose letter is before me, relates the following 
conversation that passed between Mr. Emmet and himself 
I cannot, said this celebrated and eloquent lawyer, pay Mr. 
Pinkney a greater compliment than by telling you that in 
all his arguments before the Supreme Court he was never 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 375 

known to cite a single authority that was not on record pre- 
cisely as he cited it, and so fully was the court satisfied with 
tiiis tact, that they never thought it necessary to test the 
accuracy of the citation. It gives me the more pleasure to 
refer to this, because it proves what Mr. Emmet thought of 
his illustrious rival, and how he spoke of him in the freedom 
of coDversation. Mr. Pinkney was not a man of professions, 
and yet to use his own language in a letter to a friend, " he 
had a good memory and a grateful heart." The reciproca- 
tion of kindness w'as the cordial of his life. Domestic in his 
tastes and habits, nothing afforded him more lively satisfac- 
tion, when the calls of business permitted, than to gather 
around him his children and the old friends whom he never 
changed for new ones, and the young men of promise in 
whose advancement he took an intense interest, and live 
over again the days of his boyhood and indulge in a real 
sunshine of heart cheerfulness. Even when he could not 
afford from press of business to contribute his full share to 
the pleasure of his friends, he would pass to and fro from his 
study to his parlor in the course of the evening and endeavor 
to make the best atonement in his power for the stern neces- 
sity of his absence. Such was the discipline of his mind, he 
could resume the thread of his most abstruse argument in an 
instant, and go on consolidating the chain, as though he had 
suffered no interruption. There was in one word a sort of 
pensive cheerfulness about him that captivated the heart, 
and a warm sympathy where the friends of his bosom were 
concerned, which none who ever shared it can forget. 

It is said that Mr. Pinkney was inordinately ambitious ; 
and I am not disposed to deny that his ambition may have 
exceeded the limits that are wisely and in mercy prescribed 
to the aspirations of men. But there was nothing low or sordid 
in his thirst after distinction. If he were ambitious, it was not 
to appear to be what he was not, but to be what he felt he 
should become. He was ambitious to be truly learned and 



376 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

truly great. He selected the profession of the law, and al- 
ways continued to pursue it with delight, because it was not 
possible to acquire in it a spurious and undeserved reputation. 
If he sought to occupy the rank of the first of orators, or 
the greatest of lawyers, it was by giving expression to such 
sentiments as could alone proceed from the lips of that rarest 
and most brilliant creation of God, and exhibiting those un- 
questionable fruits of ripe and profound legal learning, that 
could alone proceed from the other. He knew that the path 
of solid distinction was only open to the patient and laborious 
student, and in striving to make the most rapid and advanced 
progress in it, he was contented to toil on, amid drudging 
labor to the end, in his endeavor and determination to win 
the unfading laurel. He never resorted to low and vulgar 
artifice to gain a fi-audulent reputation. He built upon no 
other man's foundation the superstructure of his vast renown. 
He rose on no other man's ruin. In fair and open contest, 
by dint of persevering and indefatigable and intense exer- 
tion, he fought for victory ; and it may be truly said of him 
that he wore not a garland he did not fairly win. Self- 
culture in the exercise of a self-discipLine, rarely if ever 
equalled, was the true secret of his success. Conscious of the 
possession of rare intellectual endowments, and grateful for 
the gift, he labored to make the most of them by constant and 
unremitting diligence. Thus far he was ambitious. Eager 
to excel, but only by endeavoring to deserve the pre-eminence 
he sought. Too eager to excel it may have been for his own 
happiness and good ; but still neither moved by envy nor poi- 
soned by jealousy, in his efforts to excel. He recognized in 
his competitors the first men of the old and the new world, 
and he met them like a man, in the spirit of a man, who 
felt the terrible strokes of their stalwart arms, and acknow- 
ledged their inimitable power and dialectic skiU, and who 
spurned the resort to underhand trick as self-degradation. 
Feehng the grandeur of the exciting race, he laid aside every 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 377 

thing that could impede his progress. Pleasure, self-ease, 
society, were all not only resolutely but cheerfully relinquish- 
ed, to secure the palm for which he struggled. Superficial 
he was not ; self-sufHcient he was not. Never satisfied to 
remain where he was, his motto was ever onward. His con- 
stant aim was to be what he wished men to think him ; and 
what he knew, by a prudent husbandry of his resources, 
he could readily make himself to be. There was a sub- 
limity in this deathless desire to improve to the highest pos- 
sible degree the faculties of a noble intellect, which com- 
mands our admiration. There was a moral j)ower in that 
severe discipline of the mind, for its own improvement, which 
was never relaxed for a moment, that made its influence felt 
by the very first minds of the profession. It sought no 
ephemeral end by illegitimate means. Distinction alone 
was not the boon it craved. Applause was not alone the in- 
cense it coveted. Distinction as the reward of real attain- 
ment ; professional applause as the fruit of gigantic pro- 
fessional labor, — this it was which moved the soul of Pink- 
ney, and fired his noble spirit. Solid reputation, based upon 
real merit, was what he desired. So exceedingly jealous was 
he of the moral beauty of this element in the reputation he 
sought, that his friends were apprised of his intention to 
abandon the field of professional duty, the very moment he 
was conscious of any diminution of zeal in study or inherent 
failure of his mental faculties. With lees labor he might 
have lived upon the reputation he had acquired, and occa- 
sionally poured forth the higher specimens of his power ; but 
that would not have filled the measure, or reahzed the idea 
he had formed of the ambition worthy of his jn'ofession. 
Ambition I know is a dangerous thing. It sometimes de- 
generates into a mean and pitiful vice. But such was not 
the ambition of WiDiam Pinkney. There is nothing even 
in his most private correspondence, or the most unreserved 
communings of his friendship), that savored of iUiberality or 



378 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

meanness. There was, it is true, a reserve in his profession- 
al bearing, that was distasteful to many, and misinterpreted 
by more. Mr. Kennedy has done him justice in this respect. 
He appeared in the forum in the midst of his competitors 
like a knight ever equipped for battle, and he walked the 
field with knit brow and cautious step, ready for a tilt wher- 
ever he met a foeman worthy of his steel. On such occasions 
there was at times too much the semblance of hauteur 
imparted to his air and mien. But still he was not wanting 
in courtesy. He always engaged his adversary in fair fight 
and with honorable weapons. It will be remembered that 
Judge Story said of him (page 252, vol. i.), "that he was 
fair in not urging points on which he did not rely with con- 
fidence, and acute in seizing the proper point of attack, and 
driving the enemy from it by storm." This is the deliber- 
ate and honest asseveration of one who knew him well. It 
was a grapple of mind with mind, learning with learning, 
eloquence with eloquence. 

His ambition did not blind him to the real merit of oth- 
ers, neither did it excite envy in his bosom. He admired the 
talents of a Hamilton, Madison, Dexter, Dallas, Jones, Em- 
met, Story, Marshall, Webster, Clay and others ; and to the 
worth of most, if not all of them, there are interspersed 
either in his letters or his speeches, most explicit and noble 
tributes of praise. They were, most of them, his competi- 
tors, and he disputed with them, inch by inch, the palm of 
ascendency ; and he disputed to the last with the keen 
eye and practised skill of the most consummate gladiator. 
But although he was accustomed to press his advantages with 
vast dexterity, he was not blind to their exalted mental and 
moral worth. I very much question whether any man ever 
paid more frequent and spontaneous tribute to the genius or 
acquirements of his competitors than he. One thing is cer- 
tain ; his private correspondence is defiled by as httle acri- 
mony or bitterness of criticism upon his contem23oraries, or 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY, 379 

disgusting egotism, as any. In his more familiar converse 
he spoke freely of measures and of works ; sparingly of men 
and of motives. He was perhaps as little personal in his many 
earnest struggles of the forum and the Senate chamber, as 
the least offensive and most guarded of his competitors. 

To the younger merahers of the bar he was, at all times, 
the kind, considerate and sympathizing friend, the delighted 
and interested eulogizer of their endeavors to ascend the rug- 
ged hill of fame, " to drink the nectar and breathe the ambro- 
sial jierfume." He loved to encourage them in their first 
struggles to be great, and sought to stimulate their ambi- 
tion, and elevate their professional self-respect by judicious 
praise and well directed criticism. 

I do not question that Mr. Pinkney had his ftiults and 
weaknesses like other men. But, with Story, I aver they 
were trivial, when compared with his virtues — "lighter 
than the linnet's wing." To use the language of Vir- 
ginia's noble oi-ator, Randolph of Roanoke: "He had in- 
deed his faults, his foibles ; I should rather say sins. Who 
is without them 7 Let such, such only, cast the first stone. 
And these foibles, if you will, which every body could see, 
because every body is clear-sighted with regard to the faults 
and foibles of others, he I have no doubt would have been 
the first to acknowledge on a proper representation of them." 
These are noLle words, uttered in the same breath that told 
the world that the last act of intercourse between them was 
an act the recollection of which he would not be without for 
all the offices that all the men in the United States have 
filled or ever shall fill. What that act was, was only known 
to him who witnessed it ; but where the recollection is so 
sweet and fragrant, the knowledge is a thing of naught. I 
am not conscious that I have colored too highly a single trait ; 
and full well I know, I have not so combined or developed 
them as they were combined and developed in the daily 
walk. 

Justum et tenacem propositi virum. 



380 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 



MARSHALL, STORY, WEBSTER, CLAY, CAL- 
HOUN, PINKNEY. 

Marshall, Story, Pinkney, and Webster, four of the 
greatest names in American jurisprudence. All now gone 
to their rest. The first two may be said without a figure to 
linger still in the highest forum of this nation, and give 
forth law to the country and the world. The forms of Mar- 
shall and of Story (alike calm and dignified, and yet all un- 
like in the living lineaments of manly beauty), the befitting 
sanctuaries of minds free from prejudice, and well nigh intu- 
itive in judgment, have not yet faded from the memory of 
the living. The form of the third is not yet a stranger to 
the hall, that has oft resounded with his trumpet tones. 
Marshall and Story dictated law to the nation. They ex- 
pounded the constitution of the freest and noblest Republic 
known to the page of history. The world has learned to ven- 
erate their judgments. They were lumina justitice in foro 
justltim. All men loved to do them reverence. No man 
can wish, for the judicatures of the land, a more exalted des- 
tiny or a fuller measure of glory, than the permission to 
wear their mantle and emulate their greatness, by imbibing 
their lofty principles. Pinkney took, in his hands, the same 
inimitable constitution. Fresh from the society of its most 
revered authors, and animated by its stupendous principles, 
he unfolded it to the view of the American people, and as- 
sisted in the establishment of those great principles of con- 
struction, which are at once the ornament and the strength 
of that more than Egyptian pyramid, reared by the hands of 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 381 

• 

a Marshall and a Story, to the lasting honor of American 
jurisprudence. Webster lived to prove that the highest in- 
tellectual endowments and the profoundest legal learning 
perished not with them, lie wore the mantle of his three 
great predecessors (for a time his cotemporaries on earth), 
with not less grace than dignity. He enjoyed the enviable 
title of defender and expounder of the constitution. It is 
not transcending truth to say of him, that that precious in- 
strument has been made more illustrious by the surpassing 
brilliancy and depth of his giant intellect, and that ages yet 
to come will hold it in still higher reverence as they view it 
in the gorgeous light of his masterly commentary. There 
was a rare combination in the character of Pinkney and 
Webster ; sohd as the granite, profound as the ocean, bril- 
liant as the diamond, they were, it seems to me, the purest 
specimens of all that was great in oratory and masterful in 
reasoning. And now that the shades of Marshall and Story 
live but in name, and the echoes of Pinkney's eloquence and 
profound legal learning are heard amid the hills of his own 
beautifid Potomac, and Webster, too, is dead, and Marsh- 
field is desolate ; we may say, with proud exultation, in 
Webster's own words, " the past, at least, is secure," and 
Columbia shall be remembered as the abode of eloquence 
and the home of genius. In naming Mr. Pinkney and Mr. 
Webster together, and weaving a like brilliant and imperish- 
able garland for each, it must not be supposed that I mean 
to intimate that they were wholly ahke in the quality and 
character of their minds. They resembled each other in 
that feature which made them so unlike any other of their 
illustrious compeers. They were alike in the wonderful 
combination of depth and brilhancy. But in most other 
respects they differed from each other as widely as they did 
from the more distinguished of their competitors. Clay was 
far reaching, endowed with extraordinary sagacity, full of 
sterling common sense, bold as a lion, the most perfect mas- 



382 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

ter of the ^^ower to move and mould the masses, empha- 
tically and p«r excellence the orator "of the j^eople. He was 
the first statesman of the world. Almost intuitive in judg- 
ment, he was equal to any emergency, and could steer the 
noble ship of state through the most difficidt and appalling 
crisis. His courage always rose with the occasion, and his 
admirable decision of character gave a sort of charm to 
the policy he pursued, and was the chief element of his suc- 
cess. His tall and majestic figure beautifully harmonized 
with his frankness of disposition ; while his voice, which was 
the very melody of eloquence, capable of the most marvel- 
lous modulation, pre-eminently fitted him for a leader in 
the fervor and excitement ol debate. The great pacificator 
of the country, he more than once calmed the spirit of the 
vStorm, as it rose in its fury, and threatened to jDour desola- 
tion in its whirlwind path ; so that without the charge of 
extravagance, we may apply to him those beautiful words of 
the poet : 

'• Tumida fequora placat 
Oollectasque fugat nubes, solemque reducit." 

He led on in the Missouri compromise, and Pinkney fol- 
lowed. He led on in the last, not less glorious, compromise, 
and Webster followed. The glory of the invention and 
guiding policy was in either case Clay's ; the noblest defence 
was Pinkney's and Webster's. The chivalrous and heroic 
Clay will be remembered as long as the Union lasts, and the 
marvel of his eloquence, identified with the floating stars, 
will recall the splendors of the elder Pitt, and make immor- 
tal the principles of freedom it so brilliantly illustrated. 
His name is still the watchword which is recognized by 
every sentinel on guard, as the countersign ; and his memory 
is still, as it ever will be, a tower of strength. 

The genius of Calhoun (which delighted to revel in the 
midst of its own splendid theories, remarkably rich and 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNER. 383 

fruitful), united to his singularly strong and vigorous intel- 
lect, will command the admiration of the world, so long as 
originality and force are properly appreciated. But Clay, 
with all his incomparable excellence as a popular orator and 
statesman, was defective in profound logical power ; and Cal- 
houn, with all his unquestioned intellectuality, was defective 
in judgment and splendor of eloquence. Their eminence 
was restricted to the two great departments of oratory and 
statesmanship. 

Mr. Pinkney and Mr. Webster were left to illustrate that 
rare combination, which secured for them like pre-eminence 
as lawyers, orators, and statesmen. For close, severe, con- 
nected, logical reasoning, they were unsurpassed. Perfect 
masters of the science of the law ; inimitable expounders of 
the constitution, they were as profound as brilliant, as deep 
as eloquent. They were tried in the severest school and in 
the presence of the most critical and competent judges. The 
very first court of the nation, in the very zenith of its fame, 
was not ashamed to sit at the feet of either, and learn the 
true principles of constitutional interpretation. They w^ere, 
indeed, amici curife. But still they were very unlike each 
other, notwithstanding this wonderful resemblance. Pink- 
ney was rapid. He poured forth torrents of forensic elo- 
quence and vehement argumentation in a swollen stream, 
that seemed to be absolutely exhaustless. Engaged in the 
most diversified and extensive practice, he never failed to in- 
fuse the magic of his eloquence and transparency of his rea- 
soning into his numberless arguments. Mr. Webster could 
be eloquent ; at times most eloquent ; and on such occasions 
the effect was irresistible. He was calm, collected, delibe- 
rate in the main ; and yet his great soul was sometimes 
roused, and his lion spirit stirred, and then there was the 
lightning flash in his eye, and the thunder tone on his 
luu-ue. At such times, there was an awful sublimity in his 
thoughts, and a bold, massive structure in his style, that 



384 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

were admirably adapted to the occasion. He bore down, 
like a roused lion, ujion his antagonist, and desperate and 
well-timed were the blows of his stalwart arm. He was 
master of every passion, and his countenance glowed with 
the most varying expression. I was privileged to witness 
one of those noblest bursts of oratorical power in the cele- 
brated Gerard Will case. Never shall I forget the wither- 
ing scorn, the biting sarcasm, the deep affecting pathos and 
fearful sublimity, that alternately thrilled and delighted the 
wrapt assembly. 

Mr. Pinkney was not less self-collected. But fired by the 
brilliancy of liis genius, and transported by the sublimity of 
his thoughts, his warm southern temperament was more 
quickly and keenly roused, and he always rose in grandeur 
before the court, and was not confessedly excelled by any. 
He saw his conclusion with an eagle eye, hurried on with 
giant strides to reach it, and failed not of his mark. He 
forced you along " pari passu" in breathless wonder, in a 
very whirl, not of declamation, but of overpowering and 
matchless argumentation. And yet, in the highest excite- 
ment of his fervor and rushing impetuosity, he was ever per- 
fect master of himself 

Webster required some powerful stimulus to draw out his 
giant faculties. Pinkney never was without such stimulus. 
It was as natural for him to be eloquent as to speak. 
Pinkney's, was the outgushing of thought and expression 
from an overflowing fountain ; Webster's, the welling up 
of thought and expression, not less rich, but less copious 
and free in its flow. They were more Demosthenic than Ci- 
ceronian in their style of eloquence, and yet modelled upon 
neither. Vigor and perspicuity were the chief characteris- 
tics. Admirable scholars, they were singularly happy in the 
choice and arrangement of their words ; not less admirable 
logicians, they were equally happy in the classification and 
disposition of their ideas. Webster never had occasion 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 385 

to recall a word or re-arrange a sentence ; but then he was, 
even in his most excited mood, what would be termed a slow 
speaker. Pinkney was not less skilful in the structure of his 
sentences and the choice of his words. He was never known 
to be at fault for either. This was the more wonderful, be- 
cause, in the greatest rapidity of utterance, there was never 
a pause for either language or ideas. Neither of them was 
ever excelled in the ability to explore all the depths of a 
subject ; and though differing widely in their peculiar powers 
of imagination, neither of them was ever excelled in the 
beauty and magnificence of coloring they could impart to 
the deductions and processes of reasoning. Mr. Webster 
sometimes drew a vast crowd to the courts of justice, and at 
times riveted the attention of the audience. Mr. Pinkney 
never spoke without drawing a crowd, and wielding a tre- 
mendous influence over the promiscuous assemblage ; and 
this he did with such consummate skill, that he never weak- 
ened his argument or made it nerveless. Men are as fond 
of eloquence now as they were then ; and yet, taking the 
whole professional life together, it may be truly affirmed that 
no man ever drew together such crowds with like power to 
keep them spell-bound, without the weakening of a single 
link in the chain of severe logical discussion. It was, in- 
deed, a rare and wonderful gift. 

It is to be deeply regretted that these two great men, so 
much alike in towering strength, transparency of reasoning, 
copiousness and concentration of thought and wealth of 
imagination, were never brought into direct antagonism. 
They were engaged in the great Bank cause ; and there, ac- 
cording to Story's estimate, Pinkney was the bright pecuhar 
star. But to the best of my knowledge, they were never 
engaged as opposite counsel in any cause. It is a well 
known fact, that Mr. Pinkney's highest powers were always 
more signally displayed in such antagonism. It was then, 
that his ingenuity in the conduct of a cause, his quickness 
25 



386 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

of perception, his accuracy of law knowledge, his powers of 
scathing analysis, his almost intuitive perception of the weak 
points, and ardent spirit (that, like Napoleon's, would scarce 
admit the possibility of defeat) shone out in all their strength. 

When it is said that Webster stated, that he had met 
Pinkney, Emmet and Wirt, but never feared either of them 
as much as he did Jeremiah Mason, it should not be forgot- 
ten that he had never encountered Pinkney. He had argued 
by his side ; never in opposition to him. It would have 
been a glorious contest, and I regret that their mutual friends 
were not permitted to witness it, knowing that it would have 
been conducted in a way to reflect honor upon both. 

If, as I have shown, they were ahke in combination of 
talent (however much they differed in their idiosyncrasies of 
intellect), they were not unlike in the destiny that befel 
them. Neither of them was ever vanquished. They never 
suffered a Waterloo defeat, although they passed the bridge 
of Lodi, and scaled the passage of the Alps. 

Mr. Pinkney could never be followed by a reporter. He 
soon gave up the task in despair, in the fascinating spell of 
the orator. And from the constant multiplicity of his ef- 
forts, another consequent necessity for extraordinary ex- 
ertion, unassisted by reporters, it was impossible for 
him to revise and prepare for publication any of his 
speeches. Thoughts struck out in the excitement of debate, 
and beauties of expression and flashes of eloquence emitted 
by the mind, when roused by the fervor of discussion, can 
never be recalled ; and consequently, if the reporter from 
any cause prove unequal to the task, the speech is lost. It 
was Mr. Pinkney's misfortune to live and die, without meet- 
ing the man, who could write down those splendid passages, 
or even preserve unbroken the chain of his argument ; and 
it is the misfortune of the lovers of true eloquence, that 
such was the melancholy fact. Mr. Webster in this respect 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 887 

has the advantage over all others. He has left a monument 
behind him worthy of his vast fame. 

Not too rapid to be followed, in the present improved 
state of stenography, his speeches were happily preserved ; 
and that without any great labor on his part. In his speech 
on Foote's resolution, he had the advantage of a report from 
the pen of the senior editor of the Intelligencer, who is se- 
cond to none of his cotemporaries in the best qualities of a 
statesman. It is not, therefore, possible to conceive of a 
richer mine of aU that is grand in eloquence, stupendous in 
genius, and conclusive in argument, than the speeches of 
Daniel Webster afford, caught up as they fell from his lips, 
with the glow fresh upon them, and reviewed by himself in 
the sunset of his splendid career, when not a faculty was 
dimmed, nor a ray obscured. 

No man can accord to the lamented Webster a pre-emi- 
nence I do not accord to him. No man can take a prouder 
pleasure in contemplating the rising columns of his fame, 
which, " piercing the skies, is gilded by the first and latest 
rays of the sun" in his circuit of glory. 

I have thus ventured to give to the pubHc my estimate 
of the character of these two remarkable men, Webster and 
Pinkney. I waved the expression of my opinion until the 
facts that illustrated the latter were spread out before it. 
That estimate must pass for what it is worth. For a rare com- 
bination of all the elements of true greatness, they were, in my 
opinion, proudly pre-eminent. For massive grandeur of intel- 
tellect and granite strength, solidity of judgment and sub- 
lime eloquence, they were principes inter pares. Pinkney 
was Webster's equal in depth and brilliancy ; more varied 
in his gifts and uniformly great in the use of them. His 
oratory was more splendid and overpowering if viewed in 
the aggregate ; fully its equal, viewed in any other light. 
They were, however, kindred orbs, stars of the first magni- 
tude. In aU that is worthy of lasting renown, in devotion 



288 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

to the Union, power of argument, conservative statesman- 
ship and majesty of eloquence, their names will be handed 
down to coming generations — the first of lawyers, orators 
and statesmen. Equalled, it may be, by some, in one or 
other of those departments ; they were unequalled in the 
exquisite union of j)re-eminent excellence in all. I award 
to them like honor and distinction, satisfied that our coun- 
try will never want a title to the name of eloquence and 
force of intellect, so long as either name shall survive to be 
remembered. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 389 



CONCLUSION. 

Having canght up the true echoes of Mr. Pinkney's fame, 
I may be permitted in condusion to address a few words to 
the young men of the United States ; and enforce the sub- 
lime moral, which they so impressively inculcate. I had a 
higher object in undertaking this work than the mere desire 
of paying a merited tribute to the subject of this memoir. 
For although the part enacted by Mr. Pinkney in the past 
histoiy of the countr}', and his brilliant achievements in Par- 
liamentary and forensic eloquence are worthy of perpetua- 
tion ; although his name and character are a portion of our 
common heritage of glory, and therefore justly entitle him to 
be held in grateful remembrance — it strikes me that the 
powerful influence, which such an examj)le ought to exert 
upon the enterprising youth of the present day, constitutes 
the most important and attractive aim of the biography. 
Example is ever more potent for good than precejit. The 
present receives its wisest lessons and most exciting stimulus 
from the past, and the future will, for the most part, take 
its hue from the past and the present combined. Youth has 
always been nerved to patriotism and excited to eloquence 
by the great and the virtuous, whose footprints are left on 
the paths they tread. It will be so, so long as the human 
soul retains its love of virtue and admiration of distin- 
guished talent. The tombs of the departed great, the 
mausoleums of the illustrious dead, are the best schools for 
the mental and moral training of those who follow them. 
Oblivion may have its sweets, and forgetfulness its charms 



390 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

and useMness, but not where the fragrance of noble prin- 
ciples is scenting the air, and the fruits of gigantic exertion 
are clustering on the boughs. He, who strives to deserve 
weU of his country and of mankind, and consecrates his rich 
and varied powers to the service of his fellows, is a beacon 
light, set up by Divine Providence for the encouragement 
and imitation of succeeding ages. It is not possible to 
multiply too much the exemplars, who have illustrated the 
page of history and made it glorious. Each additional star 
swells the brilliancy of the constellation, and the eye never 
tires in gazing upon its beauty, for to each there is its own 
peculiar fascination. There is no antagonism in those cu- 
mulating rays. It is one harmonious blended light, that 
gathers intensity and strength from the burning splendors of 
the whole. 

Our young countrymen have an awful trust committed 
to their charge, a magnificent present, and a future such as 
never before dawned upon the world. The blessings they 
enjoy are not the birth and growth of a single day. They 
see the gorgeous blossom of the flower that was but yester- 
day in the bud ; the mighty development of the seed that 
was but just now in the germ. The United States of 
America are a new star in the political firmament — a 
federative government not known to any other confederation 
of the old or the new world — without a parallel in the his- 
tory of the past. A distinguished writer of England, in a 
disquisition concerning the power and stability of federative 
governments, of singular force and discrimination, asserts 
that ours " is a new creation in politics ; that our union has 
avoided the glaring errors of former confederacies — that our 
forefathers studied the models of antiquity in the true spirit 
of political wisdom. With a view to balance the powers of 
the central and state governments, and to prevent the former 
from overstepping its proper limits, a power has been there 
conceded to the judiciary, which has in no other instance 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 391 

been vested in that dcp.artment." These United States 
then, the invention and discovery of the patriots of '87, men 
of the lion heart and patriot will, the cool sagacity to discern 
wliat wtis best and the enlargement of soul to adopt what 
they discerned, is the country of your hopes and allegiance. 
Its principles, institutions, resources, power and future des- 
tiny, have been long the topic of eloquent discussion. It is 
history known by heart to each one of you. In temtory, for 
extent, richness and variety of soil ; in beauty of scenery, 
and mineral resources, and every other quality that could 
fit it to be the fairest heritage that ever fell to the lot 
of any people, whose bosoms beat high with love of liberty, 
social, civil, and rehgious — it is unsurpassed. Mountain 
and vale, woodland and prairie, bay, river, and lake, con- 
stitute it the consecrated land of liberty. Possessed of every 
variety of climate, from the ice-bound shores of the Atlantic 
to the warm and genial breezes of the tropics, it is adapted 
to the growth of every luxury that the palate can crave, and 
suited to the wants and tastes of the millions who have 
sought upon it a shelter and a home. Dotted over by the 
footsteps of the arts and sciences with beauty and comfort ; 
covered with railroads, which promise in a few brief years to 
form a complete iron web for the diffusion of commerce and 
the propagation of light and liberty from the centre to the 
circumference of its wide-spread domain; blessed with in- 
stitutions, free, nicely balanced, beautifully and wondrously 
harmonized, where the freedom of each is as large as the 
security of the whole will permit, and the power of the whole 
is so tempered and guarded that it cannot well become the 
oppression of the few — such is the land of your birth. 

Those who intelligently read the past and then contem- 
plate the present, must feel more than ever convinced that 
our growth is fuU as marvellous as our birth. The aegis of 
the constitution now covers an immense area. The very 
sentinels, who cry out the watchword of freedom on the 



392 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

shores of the Atlantic, may hear the echo that sends it back 
from the mild Pacific wave. These separate and indepen- 
dent sovereignties have multiplied ; and each in turn has taken 
its place beneath the floating stars without so much as a jar 
in the glorious constellation. The weak and the strong have 
been gathered into the same clustering group without so 
much as the loss of a single beam, save where that beam was 
voluntarily surrendered to be absorbed into the splendors of 
the whole. 

And yet our gi'owth has been singularly guarded against 
those dangers that foUow the widening of the bands of em- 
pire, by the discoveries of science which have brought the 
most distant States of the Union into close proximity. The 
pulsations of the great national heart may be heard and felt 
at almost every beat to the farthest verge of the body 
politic. 

We are a nation among men, a power on the earth. Our 
influence for good or evil can be circumscribed by no limits. 
Liberty in union is the true genius of our institutions, and 
who shall fetter or restrain them ? Our power is in the jus- 
tice of our political principles. It is a moral power, the 
greatest and most masterful of aU powers. Adherence to 
what is constitutional law at home, and a due observance of 
what is clear international law abroad, are the very elements 
of 6ur greatness. Our power is not a thing of force. Mut- 
tering cannon and frowning battlements do not aptly repre- 
sent it. These appendages of power we possess, it is true, 
and the thunders of Lake Erie and the bloody plains of New 
Orleans proclaim to all the surrounding nations, that while 
we love peace and cultivate it, we know how to meet force 
by force and uphold the dignity of the flag. But still our 
power is pre-eminently and characteristically the power of 
moral suasion, high example and noble unselfish jjrinciple. 
We have had a brilliant past. We have a glorious present. 
We shall have a future. But what a future ? Shall it be 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 393 

a future of joy and hope to ages yet unborn, or blacker than 
midnight when it settles all gloomily on the fretted bosom 
of the sea ? 

The ship of State has passed through sea and fire. More 
than once has she been driven furiously among the breakers, 
until her very beams seemed to bend and crack in the shock, 
and the pilot hung doubtingly at the helm. 

" Ponto nox incubat atra 
Intonuere poll et crebris micat ignibus sether." 

More than once has she been conducted in safety through 
the howHngs of the tempest to mild waters and a friendly 
harbor, where the storm spent its fury in impotency. Bright 
skies are once more above her — a clear pathway before her — 
calmly, quietly, and beneath the beauteous banner of peace, 
she cu'cumnavigates the world. The true glory of a country 
does not consist in a fruitful soil, ovei-flowing treasury, well 
equipped and well disciplined armies, fortified cities, frown- 
ing batteries, or a splendid naval force, ships manned by 
brave tars and governed by gallant officers. It does not 
consist in vdde extent of territory or a crowded population. 
These things are valuable in themselves, images of power 
and where rightly used and honestly obtained images of 
greatness. But they do not constitute true national glory. 
The day was when we had them not — a day of darkness, 
peril, fierce and desperate conflict. And yet the measure of 
our glory was never fuller. Our name was for praise on the 
lips of all. 

The true glory of a nation consists in moral elevation, high- 
toned principle, love of justice, adherence to right, schools 
and colleges, the purity of her statesmen, the intelligence 
and patriotism of her yeomanry, and above all incomparably, 
the vital godliness of each. 

It is for the young men of the Union, thus circumstanced, 
I write. I write to them because they are young men, 
young in hopes, young in energy, young in the fervor and 



394 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

freshness of an enterprising enthusiastic pubhc spirit. Youth 
is generally represented as a sort of holiday of sunshine, a 
pleasure-taking, gay, joyous, buoyant season ; when the 
prisoner just escaped from the painful restraints of his alma 
mater may give himself up to those waking dreams, which 
Prior seems disposed in a very mockery of refinement to dig- 
nify with the name of hopes. I would not take one ray of 
real sunshine from its path. I would not dim one rush 
candle that flickers by its way. I would not put into its 
sparkling chalice one drop of bitterness, to mar the buoyancy 
and elasticity of this sweet spring-time of existence. 
Youth when virtuously spent, is an oasis in this bleak, drear 
wilderness. It is the dew-drop on the trembling leaf, the 
petal of the flower not yet blown, the acorn of the oak not 
yet developed. It is pre-eminently the season of hope, the 
hour of visions bright and golden fancies, when the mind 
may weave the garland of its future fame and regale itself 
amid scented bowers and golden fruit. But youth is some- 
thing more, something vastly higher, nobler, more august. 
It is the period for the moulding of the immortal mind and 
heart ; and gives the coloring and character to the days to 
come. 

It is for the young men of the Union I wi-ite. It is for 
them I have endeavored to draw this character and disclose 
the life of one of our distinguished sons — satisfied that every 
exemplar of noble energy and aspiring character, set before 
them, must tend to stimulate their efibrts and awaken emu- 
lation in their bosoms. 

In his loyalty to the Union — in his deep and patient ex- 
amination of its stupendous principles — in his awful rever- 
ence for the constitution — in his broad and expansive patri- 
otism that scorned all sectional boundaries, and aspired to 
be coextensive with the limits of the land of his fondest love 
— in his high toned, and energetic endeavor to assist in the 
establishment of the true principle of its interpretation — ^in 



LIFE or WILLIAM PINKNEY. 395 

all those respects we fancy we may behold in Mr. Pinkney 
an example worthy of their imitation in this day of ultraisms 
on either side of the Hne that separates between North and 
South. Like him, see to it that notliing is wanting on your 
part to uphold the constitution of this Union and cause it to 
be reverenced and obeyed. Look upon it as the strong bond 
of society — cherish it in your inmost soul. Let your fealty 
to it be above suspicion and reproach. In all your exposi- 
tions of it, learn with him, while you do all in your power to 
enlighten its duly commissioned expounders, to bow with 
deference to their decisions, satisfied that the constitution, 
constitutionally inte7yreted, is the law of safety, honor, pros- 
perity, and peace to all. Should you enter the halls of legis- 
lation or rise to address courts of justice, be ever ready to 
resist by argument and eloquence the slightest encroachment 
of State sovereignty on the national jurisdiction, and vindi- 
cate the States from national usurpation. Like liim never 
approach the discussion of any constitutional question with- 
out an overawing sense of the responsibihty of the deed, and 
feel as though your country is standing before you to be 
elevated or depressed, as the constitution triumphs or is im- 
paired. 

In your youthful preparations for the onerous duties that 
must devolve upon you as the future guardians of your 
country's honor and interests, should difficulties rise up to 
impede your progress or dampen your energies — should 
poverty bow down your souls in the dust, and patronage be 
wanting to give you confidence and insjiire you with hope 
— should the sad defects of early education conspire to abate 
your ardor in the exciting race of honorable distinction, I 
would point you to the youthful Pinkney, who was compelled 
to grapple with fiercer difficulties, and alone, without money 
or patronage, the smile of friends, or the favors of the rich, 
push forward his onward and upward career ; and bid you 
take courage and never yield to despondency and gloom. If 



396 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

endowed with genius (the real power to scale the loftiest em- 
inence of professional renown), remember that genius alone 
will not suffice to crown you with complete success. Like 
Pinkney, you must study to be great. Close, diligent, search- 
ing mental discipline must be the very aliment of your 
life. Your motto, like his, must be " plus ultra." Knowl- 
edge, coextensive with the widest range of the profession ot 
the law and the science of government, must be not only 
sought by you but obtained, and that, too, by labor contin- 
ued without intermission. You must realize what is so beau- 
tifuUy recorded of Publius Scipio, " ilium et in otio de ne- 
gotiis cogitare et in solitudine secum loqui soletum ; ut ne- 
que cessaret unquam et interdum coUoquio non egeret. 
Heeque duse res qnse langorem afferunt casteris ilium accue- 
bant otium et solitudo." Never forget the lessons which 
those echoes teach so conclusively, and always bear in mind, 
that no matter how prodigal Providence may have been in 
her gifts to you, all must at last depend upon yourselves. 
Work you must, and that, too, in the close as in the begin- 
ning of your professional life ; or you may never hope to scale 
the summit and reflect lasting renown and distinction on the 
land of your birth. In this strenuous desire and exertion to 
do your best, to add something daily to the stores of your 
mental resources, you must, like him, give your days and 
nights to study ; so that when you arise to address juries, or 
courts, or legislators, you may reasonably expect to instruct 
and delight them, having mastered your subject and threaded 
all its intricacies. 

The benefit and importance of such an example cannot be 
better stated than in the language of Mr. Wirt. "No man 
dared to grapple with him without the most perfect prepa- 
ration and the full possession of all his strength. He kept 
the bar on the alert and every horse with his traces tight. It 
will be useful to remember him, and in every case imagine 
him the adversary with whom we have to cope." Years have 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 397 

passed since these words were penned, but the power of such 
an example is imperishable. So far from losing, it acquires 
strength by age, and comes to us clothed with all the dignity 
and veneration of a relic of times gone by. This ceaseless men- 
tal struggle (that never so much as winked its eye, but always 
marched steadily to the point and made preparation a de- 
light) is less the habit of our day than it was ; and, there- 
fore, there is peculiar propriety in calling up this marked and 
striking feature in Pinkney's character for renewed imitation 
and study. 

Above all, like him, keep your professional integrity as 
an advocate unimpeached and unimpeachable. Never rest 
your defence upon weak points — spurn all captious cavillings 
— and when you. grapple with your adversary, meet him like 
a man and storm the very bulwarks of his argument. 

Be it your ambition, like him, to be truly great, because 
truly learned and upright. Aim to be what you would have 
the world suppose you to be. Let your confidence be the re- 
sult of diligent preparation, and then, although like him, 
you may never rise without embarrassment, you will find 
yourselves more and more assured. Your pathway of argu- 
ment and eloquence will be clear before you. 

I hand you this simple record of a man who has been 
said, somewhat reproachfully, to live in the mere echoes of 
his fame. You have heard those echoes coming up from the 
courts before which he plead — the public service he so much 
adorned by his wise, moderate and patriotic principles — the 
Congress of the Union, where he always stood forth the 
champion of the people's rights, and where his eloquence 
and his logic were the breathings of a conser^^ative states- 
manship — and the private walks of life, which he illustrated 
by a moderation, temperance, and kindliness of heart, that 
might be said, without a figure, to have been that chorus of 
the virtues which Cicero so much lauds. You can now 
judge whether these echoes be not convincing proofs of the 



398 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

more than gothic splendors of the original. Pinkne/s fame 
may live for the most part in the echoes of the past. But 
still they are the echoes of the great, the learned, and the 
wise, who have left behind them the most undoubting testi- 
mony to the wonders of his mind — echoes not of the envious 
or fawning parasite, but the honest and upright, men of men- 
tal enlargement and well cultivated taste, giants of the age 
in which they lived. The speeches that survive him are all 
fragmentary. They lost so much in the effort to report them, 
that you can scarce discern the resemblance. Such was the 
discipline of his mind and his skill in extemporaneous discus- 
sion, that when fully prepared (and he never spoke when he 
was not), he poured forth his arguments in a stream of the 
purest English, fresh and gushing from the " well undefiled." 

Is it hoping too much ; is it asking too much of the young 
men of the United States, who are now treading in his foot- 
steps and the footsteps of the other giants of his day, that, 
thrilled by such glowing reminiscences of genius, patriotism 
and labor, they would redeem the promise of the future and 
hand on the record to succeeding ages, bright with new names, 
that shall live after them ? 

In a country like ours, where each citizen has his full 
share in the affairs of the body politic, — and no one can tell 
what positions of power and influence he may have to fill, — 
and where in the most retired sphere he may choose to occupy 
" procul a republica," he can hope to serve the country most 
effectually — it is his bounden duty to prepare himself by a 
careful training of both mind and heart for any and every 
possible public emergency. He belongs to the republic, for 
the republic is but an aggregate of personal individuality. 
He cannot lead a solitary, selfish existence without the guilt 
of moral treason against her pride and power. 

Diligence and application are tremendous levers and the 
fulcrum on which they rest i^ the might and majesty of 
your individual will. Possunt, quia posse videntur, was a 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 399 

favorite maxim iu the oklen time. Who can calculate what 
moderate abilities will accomplish, when stirred into action 
and kept vigorously at work by plodding industry and steady 
perseverance ? Aj)plication works wonders. Bacon lias said 
that " crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, 
wise men use them." " Kead to weigh and consider," continues 
that master mind. " Some books are to be tasted, others to 
be swallowed, and some few are to be chewed and digested." 
With some such maxims in your view, and the firm deter- 
mination to make the most of your powers, you must hve 
benefacere Reipublicas and reflect upon it fadeless lustre and 
renown. 

Shun superficiahty in eveiy thing you undertake. The 
habit will soon become a palsy upon your mental faculties. 
Take a step at a time, and no step without a full comprehen- 
sion of its use and aim. " Festina lente." Be satisfied to 
move a step at a time, and rest assured that your progress 
will be rendered thereby the more rapid and certain. 

The republic expects each one to do his duty, and we 
would therefore urge upon you the importance and necessity 
of diligent preparation to do it well and faithfully. 

Your fathers, " Patres conscripti," were wise men all, of 
the most approved patriotism, calm philosophic wisdom, 
patient study, and intense appUcation. Washington, Adams, 
Hamilton, Marshall led them on in theu' bright career, a 
career carved out for them on the blood- washed fields of the 
Eevolution. They left their impress on the history of the 
world — and that history must be torn to tatters before their 
memory can begin to fade, and then so long as the shreds 
remain, the disjecta membra will liand down then' names to 
confound tyrants on theii* thrones and rebuke the myrmidons 
of despotism. Wise men will be needed, wise councils, wise 
measm-es, for the future guardians of our ship yf State. 
Patriotism and intelligence, in combination with moral virtue 



400 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

and a pure Christian faith — these are the gothicand Corinthian 
pillars of the noble edifice. 

Your country looks to you. Shall she look in vain ? To 
uphold her ancient renown and fulfil her exalted destiny, she 
craves your warmest sympathies and most substantial aid. 
Will you refuse her the just demand ? None but true 
hearts, enlightened minds, heroic wills can serve her as she 
needs. 

You are young and vigorous. There is nothing that you 
may not do which she has either the right to expect or the 
authority to exact. She neither exacts nor expects of you 
impossibilities. Girded in by an example ever powerful to 
thrill and stimulate you — suiTounded by the monuments of 
a 23rudence, moderation, and patriotism, that have pervaded 
the land in all the beauty and impressiveness of an august 
reahty, she would have you only re-enact the magnificence 
and glory of the past. Worthy sons of worthy sires is all 
she desires you to be. She would have you imitate virtues 
that have already found an impersonation on the earth, and 
emulate a patriotism that knew of no measure short of the 
highest national exaltation. 

Aim to be real characters. There is power in reality. 
This was Mr. Pinkney's crowning characteristic. 

The age in which we live is an age of activity, rather 
than patient, laborious, plodding industry and attention to 
study. Even among professional men there is far less of the 
"labor limae" than existed in the generation just passed. 
There is not the same ambition to excel, the same emulation 
in the path of honorable distinction. The dust actually ac- 
cumulates on the pages of splendid Hbraries that were 
thoroughly conned by the fathers of the present generation, 
who possessed no more time for literary and learned pursuits 
than those who have inherited their names and fortunes, but 
not their thirst for knowledge or distinction. 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 401 

The great Eoman Satirist thus wrote in the decline of 
his country's literaiy and political glory. 

" Indocti prirnum, quamquara plena omnia gypso 
Chrysippi invenias. Nam perfectissiraus horum est, 
Si quia Aristotelem similera vel Potticon emit 
Et jubet archetypes pluteum servare Cleanthes." 

He rebuked those who aped learning without undergoing 
the fatigues and toil of study, and flattered themselves, that 
by filling their studios with the busts of deceased logicians 
and statues of renowned i)hilosoi3hcrs, they would merit and 
win for themselves honorable and lasting distinction. May 
we not, without charge of presumption, warn you against 
this folly, and by the hard-eanicd laurels of your ancestors, 
and ours, inculcate the all-important truth, that nothing 
truly great can be accomplished without intense api)lication. 
It will not do to have the images of Lord Bacon, Shakspeare, 
Hooker, Taylor, Coke, Mansfield, Steward, Sir Matthew Hale, 
Johnson, looking down upon us with calm beauty and inspiring 
earnestness. It will not suffice to gaze upon the statues of 
Aristotle, Cicero, Quintillian, Thucydides, Herodotus, as 
though the cold marble would warm us into liie and transfuse 
into our bosoms their own bright thoughts and deeds. It 
will not do to stand in the shadow of the fathers of the re- 
public and feast our eyes upon their calm jDliilosophic features. 
We must study their immortal works to emulate their great- 
ness. However eagerly we may pursue the discoveries made 
in science and government since their day, we must remem- 
ber that these are fixed stars which can never lose their bril- 
liancy or their use. Their works are solid gold, hammered 
out, which must constitute the waq) and woof of every 
character which like theirs would aspire to like immortality. 

The mention of Cleanthes recalls to mind an historic fact 
of pregnant interest to the young. It proves what the heart 
of oak, and iron will can accomplish. He was a Stoic phil- 
osopher, surnamed Hercules, because of his excessive labors 
26 



402 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

to amass knowledge. He was so poor that lie was accustomed 
to get his living by drawing water for the gardens at night, 
that he might apply himself to the study of philosophy by 
day. It was even said of him that he wrote the doctrines of 
his master upon ox bones and broken tiles for want of money 
to purchase befitting materials. And we know that some 
other immortal works have been since written on scraps of 
paper picked up accidentally in the streets. The home of 
genius is not in the palaces of luxury or the gardens of de- 
light, but the workshops of patient and secluded labor. 
Great names are enrolled, not upon the fleeting, unsubstantial 
cloud, whi(ih receives its roseate hue from the hand of an ex- 
cited fancy or a rich and discursive imagination, but on the 
marble dug from the quarry and poHshed by industry and 
perseverance. 

We know that we are oftentimes charged with egotistic 
folly as a nation, because we regard ourselves as the world's 
trustees. But we plead not guilty to the impeachment. We 
hold that this western continent is destined for the enact- 
ment of a grand drama in the world's history. We see the 
hand of Providence in her birth and .growth. We have no 
prophet's vision to read the future ; but we can sit down in 
the light of the past and read enough to thrill and fill us 
with awe and pleasure. 0\\v fathers copied after no model. 
It was all their own brilliant creation ; God's blessing on 
their honest patriotism, love of justice, moderation and fear 
of wrong. Liberty and equahty constitutionally guarded, 
were the magic words they emblazoned upon their high 
floating standard. They kindled a flame that still cheers the 
world, amid the darkness of misrule and the clouds of politi- 
cal superstition and antiquated error. 

In handing over this precious legacy to you, are you sur- 
prised that our anxiety and our fears are awakened, as weU 
as our patriotic exultation and pride. Your fathers will soon 
lie down to die, and the floating stars wiU wave before their 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 403 

dying eye in all the beauty of unity and harmony of their 
blended rays. Her martial airs will float trium})hantly on 
every breeze, and mingle, as they fall upon their ear, in death, 
with those other sounds that will soothe and compose them 
to their final rest. They will soon cease to be actors in this 
busy scene. Their last prayer offered up for the country's 
weal, their last deed of loyalty perforaied, they will pass from 
off this stage of action and leave you the responsibility and 
lirivilege of being alone in your glory. Their solicitude is for 
you and yours, not for themselves. Their task is well-nigh 
concluded ; their responsibility Avell-nigh accomplished. 
The past is theirs. The present and the future belong to 
you. " The past is secure." It gives neither anxiety nor 
concern. The stars and stripes cover it with glory. But 
the present and the future are laden with hopes and fears. 
Will you make it the heritage of good or the prognosticator 
of evil ? 

You have the hopes of the world in your care and keep- 
ing. You are each one of you sentinels on the watch-tower 
of liberty. The countersign from your lips is echoed from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific wave, and the world honors and 
respects it. It finds a Avelcome response in thousands, who 
dare not whisper even to their trembling hearts the solace 
and the comfort it affords. Be it your highest earthly ambi- 
tion to live as men should live who are put in charge of such 
a dread trust. Let your policy be just and upright. Culti- 
vate peace, and let the repose of nations be undisturbed by 
you. Suffer the country to grow. Intermeddle not with 
her inner life, for it constitutes at once her truest power and 
highest renown. God, in His wise overruling Providence, 
will develope her as rapidly as her safety and honor will per- 
mit. Let the American name, under your guardianship, be, as 
it ever has been, the watchword of honesty and truth. Her 
flag, let it wave the symbol of equal-handed justice and en- 
larged civil and religious liberty, the pledge of protection to 



404 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 

the rights of all and the stern, unbending, unyielding exactor 
of our own. 

Promote purity of morals and elevation of principle. 
Frown upon vice. Eevive, as far as you can, the self-sacri- 
ficing habits that characterized the infancy of the republic. 
Do all in your power to bring back again the period of '76 ; 
and let the heroic deeds and virtues of that golden age be 
your constant study and imitation. 

And above all, learn to estimate, as you ought, the power 
of individual influence, the force and might of individual ex- 
ample. " Eivulets are made up of drops — mountains of 
grains of sand," The onward rushing stream of pohtical 
power, which on this continent, and in these United States, 
occasionally swells with more than the majesty and impet- 
uosity of the Mississippi, when a flood is upon her, is only 
the swollen aggregate of private views and principles. Each 
gives an impetus to the whole. There is no danger so sub- 
tle, crafty, and insidious in its first approaches, and after 
workings for evil, as the secret conviction that it matters 
not what this or that private citizen does or thinks — the 
persuasion that the man is absorbed and swallowed up in the 
multitude. It is the most bitter drop of political poison ever 
distilled into the cup of a freeman — it is the first weaving 
of the chain of the despot on his stalwart arm. He has read 
history to but little practical profit, who does not know 
that every thought and deed of each and every freeman is 
incorporated by the mysterious law which pervades all hu- 
man society into the grand aggregate ; and that the citadel 
is never so safe as when each watchman, feeling her to be in 
danger, is wide awake and at his post. 

That my young countrymen may live to realize their 
most sanguine hopes, and reflect new lustre on the land of 
their birth ; that they may be happy and useful in their re- 
tirement, if they should prefer the quiet shade — and re- 
spected and revered for their public and private virtues, 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 405 

should they be called to serve their coimtry in the legislative 
halls, at the council board, or in the courts of justice ; that 
they may cultivate their minds and hearts, and refresh 
themselves at the well-springs of eloquence and of learning; 
and, above all, that they may be strong in wisdom, and 
show themselves as men, keeping the statutes of the Lord, 
and walking in His w-ays, and thus diffuse all around them 
the fragrance of a holy and virtuous life, is my most earnest 
prayer. They must expect difficulties, look for trials, and 
encounter many rude shocks as they traverse the sea of life. 
The very castles they build in what may be called the mock 
grandeur of their youth, "when life is like a summer 
dream," will be soon demolished, and the solid superstruc- 
ture of a sure and enduring renown will cost them many 
days of anxious toil in its erection. But still, if true to 
themselves, the country and the world, they will not fail to 
be honored and revered as public benefactors. " There is an 
intimate connection between private virtue and public 
greatness. The most honorable and liberal, the most benev- 
olent and religious man is in the first instance, and will 
eventually appear to have been, the best friend to his coun- 
try and the noblest benefactor to mankind." 

I have a deep and unfeigned veneration for the memory 
of lofty talent and high-toned manly principle, consecrated 
through long years of public service, by single-minded earnest- 
ness and self-sacrificing labor; and if I mistake not, there is 
that in the bosom of my fellow-men which beats responsive 
to my own. He who erects a monument to departed worth, 
and by his art and skill causes the marble or the brass to 
speak trumpet-tongued to the present of the past, is a bene- 
factor of his race. Every monument thus erected to lend 
beauty to the streets of the crowded city, is a pillar of na- 
tional security, which strengthens while it adorns the great 
temple of freedom. It speaks in a language free from pas- 
sion, and with the awful impressiveness of the tomb, which 



406 LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

consecrates all that is virtuous and ennobling among men. 
A monument of marble or of brass, it was not possible for 
me to raise. It is not often the privilege of descent to en- 
grave on the cold marble the image of a loved ancestry. 
True it is, the world is occasional!)^ cheered by the sight of 
the filial deed ; and even now the American can look with 
pride upon the enterprising artist, who calmly and patiently 
continues at his work, and will not abandon it until his 
countrymen shall hail the consummation of the deed. Jus- 
tice Story will live, not only in his own imperishable works, 
but in the life-revealing pen and chisel of his son. 

Mine is an humble task. To the memory of William Pink- 
ney after a long lapse of years, during which his form has 
neither moved among men, nor his tongue electrified them, 
and when the prejudices of rivalry may be supposed to have 
given place to nobler sentiments, I have erected this modest 
and unpretending monument. Inscribed upon it is his char- 
acter as I have studied and understand it. In the fourfold 
aspect of orator, lawyer, statesman, and man, you may read 
it there. I have asserted nothing without proof. I have 
weighed well the facts stated. I have uniformly permitted 
other lips to speak forth his praise. In my own estimate of 
his mental and moral character, I have studied to be impartial, 
and although it would be disgusting presumption to affirm that 
I have not unconsciously yielded somewhat to the power of 
those feelings of partiality which almost always give a coloring 
to our views, I can truly say, that I believe that the work con- 
tains intrinsic internal evidence of its truthfulness and fide- 
lity. Will any cynic chide me for the work ? He may re- 
buke the rashness of the undertaking, and I bow to the sad, 
though just impeachment. But the desire to rescue from 
oblivion the memory of departed worth is immortal, and 
none may dare rebuke it. That desire, united to the deep 
interest I take in the young men of the land, is my only 



LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNET. 407 

apology for what I know and feel, as deeply as the most un- 
sparing critic of my work, to be its rashness. 

Quid erit tutius quam eam exercere artem qua semper 
armatus, presidium amicis, opem alienis, salutem periclitanti- 
bus, invidis vero et inimicis mctum et tcrrorem, ultro feras, 
ipse securus et velut quadam perpetua potenti^ ac potestate 
munitus ? 



THE END. 



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attractive, and a clear view of principles rather than a mere external 
description of events will thus be conveyed. We can recommend tliii 
work to every reader of History as one v/hich appears 'o us indispensable."— 
Tribune. 

By the same Author.^ 

HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH 

REVOLUTION OF 16 4 0, 

From the Accession of Charles 1. to his Death Translated by William Haziitt 
2 vols. 12mo. Paper cover $1 00 or two vols. ir. one, cloth, $1 25. 
•' It is a work of great eloquence and interest and abounding with thrilling dramaoc 
sketches."— AVirarA .Advertiser. 

'' M. Gaizot's style is bold and piquant, the notes and references abundant and reliabU 
ud tlt» work is worthy of an ht«nomble place in a weU-selected library '— JV' Havet Comt 



I 



/ 



WORKS BY M. MICHELET. 

Published by D. Apphton 4* Co., 200 Broadtoa^. 

HISTORY OF FRANCE, 

FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD 
TRANSLATED BY G. H. SMITH, F. G. S. 

Two handsome 8vo, volumes. $ 3 50. 

" So gniphic, 10 life-like, so dramatic a historian as Michelet, we knnw not whom 
•Ise to look for. The countries, the races of men, the tirae§, pass viWdly hcforo yoo 
t* you peruse his animated pages, where we find nothing of difTuseness or irrclevan 
ey. It is n masterly work, and the publisliers are doing the reading public a servic 
br producing it io lo unexceptionable and cheap an edition." — TYibune. 

HISTORY 

OP THE 

ROMAN REPUBLIC. 

One handsome 12mo. vohime. Paper cover 75 cts. Cloth $1. 

" M. Michelet, in his History of the Roman Republic, first introduces the readei 
to the Ancient Geography of Italy ; then by giving an excellent picture of the present 
■tate of Rome and the surrounding country, full of grand ruins, ho excites in lh« 
reader the desire to investigate the ancient history of this wonderful land. He next 
imparts the results of the latest investigations, entire, deeply studied and clearly 
arranged, and saves the uneducated reader the troul)le of investigating the sources, 
while he gives to the more educated mind an impetus to study the literature from 
which he gives very accurate quotations in his notes. He describes the peculiaritiei 
and the life of the Roman peopio in a masterly manner, and he fascinates every 
reader, by the brilliant clearness and vivid freshness of his style, while ho eliowi 
himself a good historian, by the justness and impartiality with which he relates and 
philosophizes." 

THE LIFE 

OF 

MARTIN LUTHER, 

GATHERED FROM HIS OWN WRITINGS 

By M. Michelet: translated by G. H. Smith, F. G. S. 

One handsome volume, 12mo. Cloth 75 cts.. Paper cover 50 cts. 

■''his work is not an historical romance, founded on the life of Martin Luther 

1.-V is it a history of the establishment of Lutheranism. It is simply a biography, 

..wMposed of a series of translations. EACopting that portion of it which has refer- 

^«« to his childhood, and which Luther himself has left undescribed, the troDslatoi 

MB rarely found occasion to make his own appearance on the scene. ♦ * * * « 

it i( almost invariably Luther himself who speaks, almost invariably Luther related 

iy Luther. — Extract from M. MicheleVs Preface. 

THE PEOPLE. 

TRANSLATED BY G. H. SMITH, F. G. S. 

On3 neat volume, 12mo. Cloth 62 cts., Paper cover 38 cts. 
" Thii boei ii more than a book ; it is myself, therefore it belong* to yon • * 
K«e«ive thou t.iis book of " The People," because it is you— because it is I. • • 
. hare made this book out of myself, out of my life, and out of my heart. I bar* 
ierired it from my observation, from my relations of friendship and of neighborhood; 
lave picked it sp upon the roads. Chance loves to favor those who follow out OB« 
•ootiruous idea. Above all, I have found it in the recollections of my youth. T« 
know the life of the people, their labor and their eufierings, I had but to intarrogaw 
«r inemorT. — RUr»U fron .Sulhor^a Prrface.. 



LORD MAHON'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

D. Appleion <^" Company have just published, 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

FROM 

THE PEACE OF UTRECHT TO THE PEACE OF PARISL 
BY LORD MAHON 

EDITED BY 

HENRY REEU, LL.D., 
Prof of Knglish IJterature in the University of Penn^ylvamt 

Two handsome 8vo. volumes. Price $5. 

Mr. Macautay' s Opinion. 

"Lord Malion has nndoubtedly some of the most valuable qualities of a historica" 
frekt diligence In examinin;; authorities, great jud^'ment in weighing testimony, and giasl 
laipartiality in estimating characters." 

Quarterly Review, 

" Lord Mahon has shown throughout, excellent skill in combining, as weF. as cob- 
trasting, the various elements of interest which his materials afforded ; he hat continued 
to draw his historical portraits with the same firm and easy hand ; and no one can lay 
down the book without feeling that he has been under the guidance of a singularly clear, 
high-principled, and humane mind ; one uniting a very searching shrewdness with a 
pure and unaffected charity. He has shown eijual courage, judgment, and taste, !■ 
availing hiirjseif of minute details, so as to give his narrative the pictu esqueness of a 

memoir, without sacrificing one jot of the real dignity of history His History i^ 

well calculated to temj)er the political judgment. It is one great lesson of modesty, (or 
Iiearance, and charity." 

Edinbur/rh Review. 

" It was with no small satisfaction that we saw a history of this period annonnced 
from the pen nf Lmd Mahon, nor have we been disappointed in our expectations. Hie 
■arrative is minute and circumstantial, without being tedious. His History of the Re 
bellion in particular is clear, distinct, and entertaming. In his judgment of persons he i» 
OB the whole fair, candid, and discriminating." 

English Review. 

" Lord Mahon's work will snpply a desideratum which has long been *■ -a reaEly 
good history of the last 1.50 years. It is written with an ease of style, a C ..land of lb* 
labject, and a comprehensiveness of view, which evince the possession o' nigh qualitica- 
tian6 for the jreat ta>k which the noble author has projKiNed to himsfcif. Lord Mahoa 
avails himself extensively of the correspondence anil private diaries of >he times, which 

(fives nnn^nai interest and life to the narrative The authorities quoted fei 

Spanish or Freiich details are always the original ; and we can hardly remember a refef- 
eaoe of his Lordship's on any subject which is not to the best testimony knewa m 
accessible." 

Sismondi — Histoire des Francais. 

" 8nr le Prince Charles Edouard, en 1745 — nonsreuvoyons nniqnement 4 radmrable 
rieit de cette expedition dans I'Histoire de Lord Mahon. Toutes les relations y Mta 
MMpar^es etjugees avec unesaine critique, at le rccit presenteie vifinter^t d'un romaa.' 

Professor Smyth — University of Cambridge. 
"I may recommend to others, what I have just had so much pleasare in reading «f 
■•If, the History lately published by Lord Mahon. All that need now be knows »! tm 
K» Eroiwthe Peace of LUrecht to that of Aix-la-Cbajielle, wid be ther» foaad.' 



D. Applcton 4- Co.'s Pubhcatiom. 



ILLUSTRATED AMERICAN POETS, 

Beautifully printed in one Square crown 8fo. Volume. 

POEMS BY AMELIA, 

(MRS. WELBT, OF KENTUCKY,) 

Anew enlarged ediiion, Tlustrated with original designs by Roebrt W. Wbir, Engraf»d «■ 

Siccl in ilie best manner. 

Price «2 50 cloih ; S3 gilt sides and edges ; «3 i50 imitation morocco ; «4 50 mcr. extra. 

" Mrs VVelby, of Kentucky, stands in the higliest rank of our female poets ; she i* a Doet- 
her poems are crcation.s and thov well up from her heart with a naturalness and profuaioii 
Which leave no doubt of an ine.xhaustible fountain. Of iheir popularny there is sufficient cvi. 
dence in the fact that seven edition.s, issued in rapid succession, leave the demand uiiciiminished. 
It was tjuin" that such poems, so received, should be clad in the superb ontw/ird ailoriinu'iii* 
which are now before us— a triumph of typographic skill, to which the artistic powers of Weir 
have add3d increased attractions. A more elegant, or more attractive volume has rarelv ap- 
peared from the American press. We are mistaken if Americans do not receive the volume 
with pleasure and pride."— iV. Y. Recorder. . , ^ . . 1 r <■ - 

'• These poems, by Mrs. Wclby, of Kentucky, are characterized by much tenderness of lee.- 
In", chasteness of sentiment, sweetness of expression, and beauty of description. Many ol them 
also exhibit piety and devotion which heighten the charm ol her noetry. The volume is de- 
lightfully illustrated with original designs by K. W. Weir."— CVi!(rc/lw;an. ,,. , , 

" It is not necessary for us to express our opinion of the quality ol the content.'! of tins booK. 
That we have done frequently heretofore. The volume is eminently beautiful, and eminently 
creditable to all concerned. The very numerous admirers of the distinguished poetess will find 
it a casket worthy of the brilliant gem it contains."— Z,o«(sr?7/e Journal. , . 

" Mrs. Wclby's poetry has no need of indorsement ; its sweetness, and elegance, and truth- 
fulness to nature, have Ions been vecosmizcd and felt by hundreds and thousands of readers. In 
very befittin" style have the publishers issued this enlarged cdiiion. It has seven finely engraved 
illustrations,''from original designs by Weir. They are exceedingly beauiilul, especially ' Me- 
lodis," ' The Rainbow,' and ' The Mother.' A moie elegant book ol poems has rarely been pub- 
lished."— Com. Adv. , , , . V 1 . •. „j 

"These poems exhibit crcat impressibility and ardor of imaeinalion, chastened by purity oj 
taste and delicacy of feeling. The thoughts are generally exalted, the language beautilul, and 
the melody for the most part perfect."— JEreni'w^ Post. 

Third Edition— reduced in price— The complete 

POETICAL WORKS OE EITZ-GREENE HALLECK, 

Illustrated with Fine Steel Engravings, from paintings by American Artists. One vol., 8vo. 
Price «2 50 ; cloth, gilt leaves, S3 ; Turkey morocco, 85. 
" Few American poets would bear the test of such an cdiiion as this, so well as Halleck. Of 
laae years there has been a demand for his poems, much greater than the supply. The present, 
indeed, is the first complete edition ever published, iiicludins, as 11 does, the long poem ol I-anny, 
one of the most delightful combinations of satire, sentiment, fancy, and lun, in the lan- 
ua^e— and also the celebrated Croaker Eoistles, which are as good as the best ol lorn 
,,'uo're's, wiih the further advantaee of being diflerenl in subject and mode ol troaiment. The 
volume is a perfect 'nest of spiccry,' and it requires no cift of prophecy to preilict lor it a large 
and immediate sale. About half of the volume will be new to the majority of the readers, and 
that half contairs probably the best expression of Halleck's peculiar genius— the leliciious union 
in his mind of the poet and the man of the world. The wit is exceedingly brilli.int, ana every 
stroke tells and tingles upon the finest risibilities of 'our common nature.' Alnwick Castle, 
Marco Boizaris, Woman, Red Jacket, Connecticut, and other well known piece.s. appear now 
for the fir.'^v time in an appropriate dress. We doubt not that the volume will literally ' nm 
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SACRED POETS OE ENGLAND AND AMERICA, 

Frt^m the Earliest to the Present Time. Edited by Rufus W. Griswold. 

Ulastrated with Ten Fine Steel Engravings. A new improved edition. One vo1.,8t«>. 
Cloth, S2 50 ; gilt sides and edges, 33 ; imitation morocco, 83 50 ; morocco, 84. 

" This is a truly clesant book, both externally and internally. It is filled with gems of M 
cred poetry, culled with great care from the most inspired of the religious bard.'^." 

" Both ihj editor and publishers have shown irreat and good taste in getting up this beaatlfnl 
TO'ume, and it cannot fail to command an extensive s;ile. The illustrative engravinjrs are in th« 
fcie-'t (Style of the art, and each of the numerous specimens is introduced with a brief biogrv 
phical sketch, which sreatly adds to the value of the work. It is one of the purest, safest, autl 
most beautiful gift books that a father can present to his daughter, a brotUr 10 (lis sister, or • 
kusband te his wit."— Tribune. 



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